


Vergangenheit

by Phoenixflames12



Series: An Endless Night: Extended Scenes [13]
Category: Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Genre: Alternate Universe - World War II, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Implicit discussion of abuse/rape in chapter 17
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-14
Updated: 2018-09-14
Packaged: 2019-02-14 16:38:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 32
Words: 107,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13011837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phoenixflames12/pseuds/Phoenixflames12
Summary: Vergangenheit (German)English translation: The PastWracked with slowly worsening symptoms of tuberculosis and plagued with memories of his ordeal at Oflag VII-Cprison Camp, Captain Jamie Fraser embarks on the slow road to recovery with the help of Claire and their children.





	1. Fever

**Author's Note:**

> This is a companion piece to my longer World War 2 alternate universe story, 'An Endless Night.' I'd highly recommend reading that, particularly chapter 5, before you read this, it'll make a lot more sense then.

August 1941

_‘Sorcha…’_

_He’s standing in the depths of the camp latrine pit, teeth chattering; blackened, frozen hands clenched at his sides. Bloody faeces crust his legs, the grey-brown slurry that surrounds him stained a dreadful, rusted scarlet._

_‘Sassenach…’_

_Her name is an agonising gasp, that make the men beside him look round, each face dark and haunted with questions._

_‘Sir?’_

_Even though rank, order, everything that the army stands for does not exist here, the men persist in deferring to him. He cannot answer them. Cannot do anything for them, unable to move, unable to breathe, as the bloody agony of the cough that has pursued him ever since the autumn, consumes him, forcing him to his knees._

_‘_ _Komm schon! Steh auf! ‘_

_He cannot._

_It is all he can do to breathe, forcing frigid air in and out of his lungs._

_‘_ _Komm schon!’_

 

_A rifle pressed to the small of his back. A fist gripping the remnants of his collar, forcing him to his feet, ice cold breath reeking of nicotine pressed close to his ear, a thick, southern German accent cool and heavy in his ear._

_‘If you want to see your_ _Englische Hündin again, you swine, you will get up and you will walk.’_

_Claire._

_A Dhia, Claire!_

_Slowly, so slowly, he hardly knows that he’s doing it, he straightens and turns, barely supressing a groan as his back cracks into place, each vertebra screaming in protest._

_‘Sir’, swallowing the lump in his throat, he turns to face the guard, schooling his face into a mask of blank control._

_They cannot see that he is afraid._

_They must not._

_The dark eyed face leers back at him; the rifle swung, primed and pointed directly over his heart._

_The last thing he sees are the gleaming spots of scarlet that mar the snow at his feet._

* * *

 

 

April 1945

 

‘Jamie! Jamie, love, wake up!’

 

A hand on his shoulder. A blissfully cold hand that makes his skin prickle, the agonising heat of whatever it is that is over him suddenly unbearable.

 

‘Christ, you’re burning! Why didn’t you say something?’

 

A ripping sound as the sheets are torn back and his body, curling away from the sudden cold is naked.

 

Exposed.

 

Vulnerable. Vulnerable as he had been standing in the tattered rags of his uniform in the latrine pit, staring down the barrel of the guardsman’s rifle.

 

He cringes from the memory, curling back, trying desperately to restrain the battering of the cough that tears at his throat. It comes anyway, blood splattering against the crumpled, sweat soaked sheets. 

 

‘Jamie,’ a cool hand to his forehead, soft amber eyes slowly swimming back into focus.

 

_Claire. God, Claire... Lass… I… I am so sorry!_

‘Jamie’, she says again in the same voice that he remembers her using to the bairns when they were ill, her hands tightening in his.

 

Calm.

 

Controlled.

 

Only the gleam of those beloved amber eyes betraying the turmoil that he knows is tearing at her heart.

 

‘Faith’s gone to get the Land Rover. You…’ Biting down on another fit of coughing, he reaches for her hand, wanting to hold her, to reassure her.

 

The shadows of the room swim before his eyes, the light of the passage dancing weirdly as he struggles to focus. In the depths of the hall, a door slams.

 

‘Mam! Mam, the Land Rover’s ready!’

 

Faith.

 

She is at the bedroom door then, her auburn hair curled at her chin, wrapped in what he now sees as a greatcoat that belonged to his father, bright cat-eyes shining with worry.

 

‘I’ve brought the Land Rover across…I…’

 

She breaks off, eyes shining; crossing the room to reach for his hands, glancing at Claire, who nods, stepping back.

 

‘Thank you, _mo chuisle’,_ the words rasp against his throat, his heart breaking with love at the sight of her, placing a quiet kiss on her cheek.

 

Faith had been eleven when war had been declared; a bright, vivacious child whom he remembers standing on the platform at Inverness railway station with her hair in two thick plaits, standing on tip-toe to wave him off.

 

‘The hospital has secured a bed for him’, he hears Faith tell Claire as they slowly make their way into the passageway. Each step is an agony of endurance, the stiff fingers of his right- hand trembling against Claire’s arm. A chink of light glows under Brianna’s bedroom door and his breath hitches. ‘Maggie Murray’s on duty, I’ve asked her to sit with him and…’ Faith swallows and Claire nods, reaching out her free hand to cup her daughter’s face and he can’t bear it.

 

He can’t bear to say goodbye to both of his daughters. Not now. Not tonight.

 

‘Da!’ Brianna’s hair is falling out of her sleeping plait, eyes widening as she takes them in, the tartan rug thrown over her shoulders slipping to the floor. She has left her reading lamp on, a book whose title he can’t discern lying open on her pillow.

 

A moment later she has wrapped himself around his waist, burying her head in his chest, the thick strands of her plait running like wheat through his fingers.

 

_Oh lass! Dinna weep, mo nighean ruaidh, dinna weep…_

‘Get well Da’, he hears her whisper, her voice thick and choked in his shirt.

 

 _I will try, m’annsachd,_ he thinks desperately, struggling to supress another bout of coughing as she draws back, eyes glistening in the shadowed light.

 

 _I will try._  


	2. Forgive Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> April 1945
> 
> It is only at the hospital in Inverness does Faith truly understand the extent of her father's suffering.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a companion piece to my longer World War 2 alternate universe story, 'An Endless Night.' It runs directly on from Vergangenheit.

Forgive Me

1945

 

‘Nurse Fraser?’

 

She doesn’t hear the sister’s voice at first as she stands at the foot of Private Donald’s bed, the thermometer trembling between suddenly nerveless fingers. She’s been on her feet for ten hours- first in the operating theatre under the hawk-like supervision of Nurse Johnstone under whom she was learning how to set a surgical table and then back in Ward C to do the TPRs and clean. Her hands are red and raw from endless emersions under ice cold water between patients, her head throbbing with an agony that before her training she didn’t think was possible to feel.

 

‘Nurse Fraser?’

 

Sister Gregory’s voice again, expectant, insistent.

 

Private Donald, nursing the cup of tea that she had given him after she had performed his TPR’s gives her a small, faint smile, the stars glittering in his eyes that cannot see, making her heart clench. Sitting up in his freshly made bed and freshly shaven, he looks awfully young younger than Brianna, although she knows from his medical chart that he’s nearing twenty- five.

 

He will be moved to a specialist unit soon, away from the wards, to be given the rehabilitation that he needs to come to terms with his lack of sight.

 

She just wishes that she did not have to say goodbye.

 

‘Yes, sister?’

 

‘I’d like you to do something for me’, her lips are tight and Faith can see the sharp creases of worry piercing her cheeks.

 

‘There’s an officer, newly arrived last night in ward F, who needs a kaolin poultice. I’d like you to sit with him for a while, make him comfortable afterwards. Could you do that for me?’

 

Faith nods, feeling dry mouthed, biting her lip.

 

She must not let Sister Gregory see how much this is hurting her. She can’t. _Sister Gregory cannot know that she knows exactly who the new officer, de-mobbed officer,_ she tells herself firmly, remembering Major General Fortune’s letter _, is and why he has been transferred._

Slowly returning the thermometer to the surgical table to prevent her shaking hands from doing the unthinkable and dropping it, she nods and tries to smile, her heart hammering.

 

‘Of course, sister. Right away.’

 

* * *

 

 

The walk through the warren of corridors to ward F takes an eternity. She has walked it many times before but cannot remember the last time that it has taken this long.

 

Her hands are clenched into fists, thrown into the deep pockets of her grey-blue dress, sweat catching at the tails of her cap, neatly tied at the nape of her neck.

 

_If she was too late…_

_If he took a turn for the worst and she wasn’t there… If her Mother…_

‘Faith!’ She almost walks into Maggie Murray, her favourite cousin and fellow VAD. Sweet, tall Maggie, with her dark Murray eyes and crown of Fraser hair tucked away under her cap.

 

Her face is white and strained, the dark eyes catching the same haunted look of exhaustion and emotion that Faith knows she wears as well.

 

‘What is it?’ The doors to the ward are ajar, the backs of the QA nurses with their flowing white caps, drifting like falling snow between the beds.

 

Maggie’s grip on her arm tightens, steering her towards the door.

 

‘It’s your Da…’ Her voice is wobbling ominously and Faith finds that she can’t bear to hear it.

 

‘He’s...He’s asking for you, Faith. He came out of theatre and…’

 

‘Nurse Murray!’

 

A distant shout from the corridor and Maggie is hurrying away, squeezing Faith’s hand in desperate reassurance as she flees, leaving Faith alone.

_‘Ye’ll be all right’,_ the squeeze seems to say, her cousin’s dark eyes shining as Faith marches up to the double doors and knocks. ‘ _Ye both will.’_

 

* * *

 

Ward F gapes before her, a blur of QA nurses, VADs, beds and patients.

 

So many patients.

 

Swallowing the lump in her throat that is threatening to choke her, she moves forward towards the nurses’ desk.

 

She must move.

 

She must work.

 

She must follow the rules that were not her rules.

 

‘Yes?’ A kind, dark face under a flowing QA cap, lined with wrinkles smiles up at her from the heap of paperwork.

 

Her hands are trembling, knuckles shaking through the wool of her dress.

 

‘I…’ She stops, swallows.

 

‘Sister Gregory sent you, didn’t she?’

 

It isn’t a question and Faith can only nod, heart thudding.

 

The Nurse nods towards a bed near the end of the ward, where screens have been put up; the ghastly echo of a hacking cough just audible.

 

‘Ye see that bed, nurse? He’s a demobbed captain. Acute case of TB and to go into surgery in a few hours, but there’s no need to wear a mask. Find a chair and go and sit with him before he’s prepped. Now.’

 

 _I know,_ Faith thinks desperately, nodding. _I know. He’s my Father, I referred him in, I know Sister!_

 

* * *

 

Her Father is asleep when she pushes back the screens, placing the straight backed chair down as quietly as she can.

 

It is not difficult to see him as a soldier, but she finds herself filled with quiet tenderness, as if she is watching Willie as he sleeps.

 

The high, fine lines of his cheekbones are hollow with pain, the lines and bends of his face rough and worn from years of unimaginable hardship. The skin is clammy under her touch as she reaches out a finger to trace the line from cheek to jaw and as she reaches to take his hand, the stiff fingers tremble in her grip. The skin is cold and greasy to her touch and she swallows, firmly pushing what she knows to be the truth from her mind.

 

_Not now._

_Not yet._

_Please._

‘Faith? _Mo cholom geal?’_

 

His voice is a whispered rasp, struggling against the blood that surges like hot mercury through his tattered lungs.

 

‘Yes, Da’, she whispers, heart aching, not caring who hears her. A determined curl has come loose and is curling over his forehead in a cowlick and his eyes are intensely blue, despite the pain.

 

_My white dove._

He used to call her that when she was small, swinging her up onto his shoulders as they tramped through the heather to the broch behind the house to check the cows, listening to the lonely cries of the curlews mingled with the sweet soprano voice of the larks rising high above in the endless sky.

 

She had never felt so free.

 

‘I’m here’, she says, not trusting the wobble in her voice, tightening her grip on the once strong hand.

 

‘Mam… Mam had to go home tae look after Bree and William, but…’ She stops, swallows, looks down at her lap. Her apron is stained with unknown muck and her free hand cannot stop shaking.

 

_Had it only been a few hours since she had run across the gravel to fetch the Land Rover bundled in her grandfather’s greatcoat? Only hours since she had fought with the gearstick, watching Claire slowly guide Jamie down the front steps, shoulders hunched against the weight of the cold?_

 

It feels like a lifetime ago.

 

‘You’re here’, he whispers, eyes shining, not hearing her. ‘Sweet lass.’

 

His free hand reaches to cup her cheek, the fingers frail and bony in the harsh electric light. ‘Bonny lass’, he whispers, the weight of an impending cough tugging at the words and she can tell that he is tiring. The bright, blue eyes that she will never tire of are fixed on her face and her grip tightens in his.

 

_Oh, Da!_

Slowly, she reaches for the glass that sits on the cabinet beside the bed and pours him a measure, adding a pinch of bicarbonate of soda to help his throat.

 

He can barely lift his head to drink and she slips her hand behind his head to hold it steady, her fingers brushing against the weight of bare skin, not quite recovered from the harsh blades of the barber’s shears.

 

He smiles at her once she is finished, eyes brimming.

 

‘I’ll have to change your poultice, Da’, she says after a while, drawing her hand away, remembering why she has been sent.

 

He shakes his head, reaching for her hand again, his next words choked and heavy with blood.

 

‘Nay lass, I’ll bide. Ye won’t leave, just yet?’

 

‘No,’ she murmurs as she smooths down her crumpled apron. Biting back her tears, knowing that it is the least that she can do for him.

 

‘No,’ she says again, more firmly this time.

 

She is afraid, terribly so, and doesn’t want to be afraid just now.

 

‘No, Da’, the hand in hers tightens and her voice trembles, the thin, cold skin shivering beneath her own as he brings their joined hands to his lips, sweat shivering on her knuckles. ‘I … I won’t leave you, not now.’

 

She stays there until he sleeps and a grey-eyed Sister with a beaked nose whom she doesn’t know places a hand on her shoulder, telling her firmly and silently that it was time to go.

 

‘I can’t,’ she hears herself say, her voice suddenly thick, not knowing where she has found the strength to disobey an order.

 

‘You can, Nurse Fraser.’ The Sister’s eyes were bright with what could be compassion. ‘Stand up now, there’s a good girl.’

 

The last thing that she sees of her Father before she flees back to the ward is a flash of auburn hair disappearing as the kindly Sister closes the screens.

 

It is only when she has locked herself away in the lavatory; standing over one of the chipped, enamel sinks as she scrubs at her hands, does she find the strength to cry for him.

 

Cries until there are no tears left and the blood from her skin has been sluiced away with the salt from her tears and Maggie Murray is sent to find her, curled up against one of the pipes.

 

‘He’ll be all right Faith, you’ll see,’ they are words that she knows that Maggie doesn’t believe and yet as she buries her head in her cousin’s shoulder, clutching the offered handkerchief, she hopes desperately that they are the truth.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please feel free to read and review! 
> 
> Comments, suggestions, constructive criticisms etc are like chocolate to my brain!
> 
> Much love and enjoy x


	3. Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After a week in hospital, Captain James Fraser is driven home by Faith

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to everyone who has taken the time to read this, particularly AbbyDebeaupre, for giving me the incentive to continue it. I am so sorry that this chapter took so long to put up, I've found that the inspiration for writing has been quite elusive over the festive period.

Captain James Fraser is discharged from hospital after a week of intensive scrutiny to convalesce at home. Clumps of blue anemones are peeping out of the gravel, the light slowly dipping into long, sharp shadows when Faith pulls the Land rover into the courtyard, her Father’s hand clasped firmly on her knee.

 

The air smells sweetly of rain and wet heather, the cry of the curlew on the moor, the trunks of the silver birches and Douglas firs that encircle the house soft and shining against the hurled plaster.

 

‘Home’, Faith murmurs, letting the word run through her mouth. She has not been home for the last week, choosing to take up her bed in the first year students’ dormitory again. She had told herself then that she needed to be close to her Father, to feel useful. Now, as she eases the Land rover to a stop, she realises that what she had craved after all the heartache and uncertainty of her father’s homecoming and removal to hospital was a place of sanctuary. A place of order, of rules that she could understand.

 

A place where she could disappear.

 

‘Faith!’

 

Beside her, Captain Jamie Fraser, her Father, Laird of Broch Tuarach, stiffens, the hand on her knee suddenly rigid.

 

Claire is hurrying down the steps to meet them, an apron littered with flour stains tied firmly around her middle. Her hair is curled and frantic about her face, her eyes wide with worry.

 

‘We didn’t expect you until tomorrow, love!’

 

Before she knows what she’s doing or why she’s doing it, Faith has flung open the squeaking, rigid door that is in desperate need of oil at the hinges and has flung herself into her mother’s arms.

 

‘Mother’, strands of mint and cinnamon mixed with the peaty, pungent earthiness of the garden cling to her Mother; homely scents grounding her to house and home. ‘Oh, Mam!’

 

‘It’s all right, _a chuisle’,_ she hears Claire murmur, her lips pressing a soft kiss into her eldest daughter’s hair as Faith struggles to compose herself, desperately trying to stem the tears that have been threatening to break for an eternity. Slowly she tries to draw back from the dark sanctuary of her sorrow, letting Claire cup her chin, one finger softly thumbing away her tears as she hiccups and blinks herself into a smile.

 

‘Mummy’s here little love. It’s all right,’ she hears Claire murmur, the words sparking off a long-forgotten memory of being gathered into a bath towel on either of her parent’s laps and having every inch of her soft baby skin towelled dry. Of the warm hinges of the day being reverently kept. Bathtime, teatime, bedtime, all unfolding in the soft fixture of the bathroom with the tang of Pear’s soap and the thick, white bath sheet. Of watching her parents with Brianna and later with Willie and hoping, praying that what she saw before her would never change.

 

She remembers her parent’s prattle, her father’s voice soft with loved Gaelic endearments echoing off the fuggy bathroom acoustic as he brought her to his knee and towelled her dry, a corkscrew curl unfolding against his forehead.

 

_Oh, Da! I…_

 

* * *

 

The next few minutes pass in a blur. With the gentlest of shoves, Claire sends Faith about her business whilst she tends to Jamie. Feeling like a sleepwalker, she moves slowly, feeling her heart open and close at the thought of home.

 

She had wanted to feel useful here.

 

She had wanted to feel useful, but now as she makes her way towards the soft, warm smells of the kitchen and the low hum of her siblings’ voices and the crackle of the wireless, she begins to understand that now is not the time for her to hide behind the comforting persona of a VAD.

 

She is a daughter now.

 

A sister.

 

‘Faith!’ She is so caught up in her thoughts that she doesn’t see Brianna leap up from her place at the kitchen table.

 

A pile of discarded books lies scattered across the scrubbed oak wood, one of their grandmother’s vases painted in a duck egg blue blooming with snow white amaryllises’. Bran, lying the full length of the ancient green velvet sofa gives a disgruntled, rumbling ‘woof’ at his dreams being interrupted and pads over to Faith; the great, grizzled head butting itself under her arm, yellow eyes soft with concern. He smells of woodsmoke and straw dust mingled with the soft stink of old age and Faith bites back another sob.

 

‘When did ye get back? We didna hear ye’, Brianna is babbling, leading her to the empty space where she has sat down for meals with the family for so many years, where her eyes cannot help but be drawn to the narrow wooden chair that was their fathers. Willie is watching them with wide eyes from his plate of bread and jam, a crust half risen to his mouth.

 

‘Just now’, she staggers and grabs hold of the table to stop herself from falling, her legs giving way with a groan of relief as she sits.

 

Her younger sister’s face swims in and out of her line of vision; a sharp, sweet face festooned with freckles, framed by two stubbornly unravelling plaits, the bright blue eyes that they share glistening with worry.

 

‘Is Da…?’ Brianna reaches to grasp Faith’s hands in both her own, rubbing them vigorously.

 

Before she can answer though, the kettle on the AGA begins to whistle in agitation and Brianna yelps; squeezing Faith’s hand as she darts to the stove to rescue the boiling water.

 

‘He…’ Taking a deep breath, Faith tries to banish the image of their father wheezing and gasping for air in his worst moments, the grip on her hands claw-like as he had called her Claire and cried for his Mother. They had been moments that seemed to last for days as she had sat with a bowl swimming with bloody vomit clutched in her hands, reassuring him in words that she tried desperately to believe.

 

_They have a right to know._

‘He…’ She stops, gulping back a sob.

 

‘Oh Bree, I… I…’

 

The words come tumbling out before she can make sense of them. Words, images that she doesn’t think that she is ever going to rid herself of, memories that make Willie slowly get down from his seat and curl into Brianna’s lap, hazel eyes, full of childish innocence gleaming up at her.

 

 _‘_ Is it verra bad, Faith?’

 

She nods wordlessly, groping in her dress pocket for a handkerchief.

 

_How can she explain the fact that their father almost died to a seven-year-old?_

 

‘Mam will make it better though, won’t she? Willie, get off, I can’t feel my feet,’ Brianna forces Faith a weak smile as she shoos Willie back to his toast and pulls a mug from the dresser, groping for the small flask of whisky that has somehow found its’ way up there to pour more tea, laughing at Faith’s raised eyebrows.

 

‘Ye look like ye’ve seen a ghost, Faith, so dinna be telling me that ye dinna need at least a nip, ye clotheid.’

 

Faith can only nod. Speech seems to have failed her and it is only when Brianna pushes the cup into her hands and clamps her fingers tightly around it, does she begin to feel remotely human.

 

Above their heads comes the echo of a door swinging shut and the sound of hurrying footsteps down the main staircase into the hallway.

 

Brianna’s hand creeps its’ way into hers and squeezes tightly.

 

Willie puts down his knife with a clatter that echoes across the suddenly silent kitchen, pushing his plate away, looking, in the dim, half-light, far older than seven.

 

Claire stands before them, her eyes wide and red-rimmed. Her face carries the same haunted look that Faith had seen on too many of her fellow nurses during a crisis, but her hands are steady, clenched around a damp cloth. Faith can feel her heart slowly slip through her chest, falling with a splintering crash to the floor.

 

_No._

_Please, no._

_Not now._

 

Their mother’s next words are caught and brisk, only the slightest tremble betraying the turmoil that Faith knows is tearing at her heart.

‘Children, I’d like you to go upstairs, please. Your father’s asking for you.’

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please feel free to read and review!
> 
> Comments, suggestions, constructive criticisms etc are like chocolate to my brain!
> 
>  
> 
> Much love and enjoy x


	4. Choices

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With the stubbornness of Claire to guide him, Captain James Fraser tries to overcome the fever that is threatening to consume him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to everyone who has taken the time to read and review this! Your desires to stick through the sheer amount of angst are admirable and I promise that they'll be rewarded with some joyful fluff soon!

_He’s drowning._

_Each breath screams with effort, his lungs tearing themselves apart as they struggle for air._

_He can feel someone holding his head, helping him swallow liquid that tastes of iron. Tender hands that he knows but can’t place, concern blooming in their fingertips._

_‘It’s penicillin and it tastes of iron because your gums are bleeding. I’m here, love. I’m here.’_

_For a moment, he thinks the voice belongs to his mother._

_But the moment has gone before he can truly grasp hold of it and the pain returns, clawing at his throat and he’s struggling, retching, wheezing, desperate for relief._

_‘You’re safe, my darling. You’re home.’_

_The voice is trembling, the hand a desperate anchor amid this sea of agony and he clings to it._

_Stay wi’ me, just for a little while longer._

_Claire._

_Her name is Claire._

_For six years he had repeated the name over and over as his Hail Mary and each time that he’d said it, it had been slightly different._

_It is a name that had bolstered those achingly cold nights spent jolting in the cattle trucks towards Bavaria, cried aloud during the worst moments of camp fever, a flame to his heart during the death march, murmured with reverent hush in the dusky quiet of their wedding night, twenty years before._

_The hand that holds his is cold, the skin scraped raw and bloody to touch._

_Och lass, your puir hands!_

_She has been plunging them under the frozen tap in the WC, with no care for their comfort. Swearing at the cold, forebye, but trying so hard not to make a sound._

_The cool hardness of his wedding ring caresses the under skin of his fingers, the delicate intricacies of the Highland interlace pattern rising to his fingertips like Braille._

_Sorcha, he had called her then and calls her now, the word bloody and hacked and broken against her, swollen fingers shaking, desperate._

 

_‘You have a choice, you know’, her voice is closer now; the words whispered through clenched teeth inches from him. He feels her warmth caressing his cheek, flooding his belly, the strength of it so great that he would weep if he had the strength for tears._

_A Dhia, to lose her!_

_He cannot think of that._

_‘But I’m telling you one thing, James Fraser. You survived a bloody war, for Christ’s sake. You are not allowed to die now. I won’t… I won’t let you.’_

_Her voice is wobbling with exhaustion, her hands trembling as they reach to cup his cheek, the weight of her fingers hard on his cheekbones. Yet he hears the fire in her voice, the fierceness in her lips as she kisses him; long and slow and tender, burying her head into his chest. He hears her breathing, hitched and shallow in the quiet, gulping back tears against his skin. Tries to tighten his grip on her hand, feels the air hiss in a bloody rush from his lungs and winces at the pain._

_He is so cold._

_He hasn’t felt this cold since the march; that endless expanse of time where day and night had no meaning and every bone in his body had screamed against him._

_‘Jamie?’_

_Her voice feels very far away and that frightens him. He tries to reach for her hand again, but that too is beyond his reach._

_Dinna leave me, mo nighean don. Please._

_Her hands slowly find the collar of his shirt, the weight of her thumb an anchor as it caresses the ridge of his breastbone. She cuddles close, fiercely trying to shield him from the fever’s wrath._

_‘Ye won’t lose me, Sassenach’, he finds himself thinking desperately, clinging to the life that she offers._

_‘I promise ye that.’_

* * *

 

 

 

He comes to in a quiet hush enveloping the house. Long, sharp shadows streak through his vision, the last of the days’ light dipping in a fiery crescent behind the moor, setting it ablaze.

 

Out of the corner of his eye, he can just make out the outline of the pencil sketches of the children, that Brianna had done when she was eight and had picked up his mother’s drawing pencils for the first time, sitting under the self-portraits that he had had commissioned after the wedding.

_The Laird’s room, then._

 

_How had he got here?_

‘Claire.’ Her name rasps against his throat, her name a breath of long-forgotten memory.

 

She is curled in the bed beside him, one hand firmly clasped in his, her hair a tangled crown of ragged browns and golds curled about her face.

 

She had cut him a lock during their courtship and placed it in a locket that she had pressed into his hands as the train was pulling out of Inverness station, pulling him to war. He had kept it safely tucked in the breast pocket of his battledress tunic, a comfort over his heart.

 

 _‘_ Brown haired lass,’ he murmurs, the words catching as he bites back a cough.

 

‘Jamie!’ She is awake before he truly registers that he’s woken her, her eyes wild as she flings herself over to look at him, one hand reaching instinctively to feel for a pulse.

 

‘Oh, you...You utter, utter bastard!’ Her voice wobbles at the accusation, tears catching too quickly to her eyes and he reaches a trembling hand to thumb them back. Her voice sounds more surprised than accusatory and he tries a small smile for her, his lips stiff and cracked from lack of use. She scowls at him, tumbling out of bed to the small ewer that he hadn’t noticed sitting on the bedside table where usually she keeps her small black book of remedies.

 

‘I couldna…’ He pauses, trying to find the right words. They had come to him some time during the night, a shining light catching at the children’s faces and faded just as quickly.

 

‘I couldna leave ye and the bairns, _mo chridhe,’_ he murmurs and the feather-dark brows rise as she rings out a cloth and lays it across his forehead, finding another to dab at his lips, eyes blazing a mixture of love and a thousand accusations in his direction.

 

The icy water is blissful against his skin, but as he reaches up to grip her hand, he can smell the soft reek of fear-sweat that still clings to her, his heart aching.

 

_Oh Sorcha, I am sorry!_

 

‘You still could, you know. You’re very warm.’ Her voice is tight against her tears as she presses the cloth down hard on his forehead.

 

‘I…’

 

‘I would verra much like tae see the children, _Sassenach,’_ he hears himself say, his voice a weak rasp in the stillness, reaching to grip her free hand. His grip is a ghost of its’ usual firmness, but the memory of past strength is still there and for that he is glad.

 

Her eyes widen at that, her teeth firmly clamping down on her lower lip.

 

‘They won’t tire you? You won’t…?’

 

The question hangs unfinished, but he knows his answer without the rest.

 

‘They never could, _mo cholom geal._ Please.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please feel free to read and review! Comments, suggestions, constructive criticisms etc are like chocolate to my brain!
> 
> Much love and enjoy x


	5. Together

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Amid the confusion of his return from hospital, Jamie Fraser’s children share a longed for moment with their father.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to everyone who has taken the time to read and review this! I hope that this fluff (or my interpretation of fluff), will satisfy your cravings for some quality Fraser family time.

The walk to their parents’ bedroom feels much longer than Brianna can ever remember it taking, her mothers’ words throbbing through her ears.

 

_‘Children, I’d like you to go upstairs, please. Your father’s asking for you.’_

 

The lights from the hallway dance eerily off the walls, their shadows thrown wild and wide against the painted plaster. William’s hand creeps into hers; feather light fingers trembling slightly against her palm.

 

Her brother’s amber eyes gaze up at her, the look wide and uncomplicated. For a moment, he looks so much like their father that she has to bite back a cry.

 

‘Mam will make him better, won’t she?’ It is said with such simple, trusting innocence that she can do nothing but nod.

 

_Mam will make him better._

How she wishes that she could believe that!

 

How she wishes that she didn’t have to see Faith’s eyes, ashen with exhaustion swimming in the warmth of the soft kitchen light, and know that it would take more strength than Claire possessed to pull their father out from wherever the war had thrown him.

 

In front of them, Faith has stopped dead, reaching back to usher Willie forward. The door to their parent’s room is ajar and she can just make out Claire’s voice, soft and indistinguishable against the sharp hack of Jamie’s cough.

 

‘Mam?’ The knock at the door thuds through her and in that moment, she is glad that she is not the eldest, not the one having to bear such a burden of knowledge as her sister.

 

‘Mam, it’s us. May we come in?’

 

With a tentative slowness that makes Brianna want to scream, Faith pushes the door open.

 

* * *

 

 

The first thing Jamie senses is the weight of a cool, small hand resting on his arm.

 

Everything is quiet and cold, as if he has been pushed underwater, only the anchor of that still, small hand keeping him afloat. Heady, fetid smells assault his nostrils, the reek of fever and fear sweat mingled sharply with the clear, clean smells of newly washed skin.

 

‘Da?’

 

It is a tiny squeak of a voice that brings him back. A voice that shakes with uncertainty, but one that makes his heart turn violently inside his chest, a voice that he has dreamt about for so long and now…

 

‘Willie?’

 

His son’s name comes out as a rough croak, hard and hacked from lack of use.

 

Willie’s face, so like his own and yet burning with the intensity of those piercing amber eyes, is framed almost at once by Claire, beaming down at him. Her breath stirs the sweaty clumps of his hair, the grip of her hand tightening on his shoulder.

 

 _Once,_ he thinks, trying to smile up at her, _he would have taken the security and solidness of her grip for granted, but that had been before the war._

 

_Before the children._

 

_They had both been younger then._

 

_Young and with nothing to lose. Unlike now. Now they’re clinging to each other with all the pulsing strength of a rock climber clinging to a cliff face and he cannot let go._

_He cannot let go because to let go would be to sully the memories of all those who had sacrificed their lives in order to bring him back to her. All those whose friendships would now be little more than shadows; memories brought to life in a murmured prayer, a candle burning in the shadowed darkness of Broch Mordha’s kirk._

‘Are ye… Are ye better now, Da?’ Willie’s face holds an expression of acute concentration, his freckles burning against the shadows of the room.

 

From a distant corner downstairs, he can hear faint hum of the gramophone, the soft rush of Willie’s breathing, the girls huddled somewhere close. His son’s silk bright hair catches against the fading light outside, the amber eyes bright with an odd, old look.

 

His eyes search for Claire’s and she nods.

 

‘Aye’, he murmurs, reaching to ruffle Willie’s hair. His fingers are cold amid the tangled curls, the light dancing in a fire of colour. Seeing this, the girls move closer, their faces dancing in and out of focus in the shadowed lamplight. He smiles for them, seeing Faith bite her lip with worry, Brianna twisting a sheaf of loose hair round her finger, a nervous habit of hers that he has forgotten.

 

Faith kneels by the bed beside Willie, resting her head on his knee. The weight is a comfort through the coverlet and she throws him a tiny smile, one so full of pain and love that it makes his heart ache.

 

‘Dinna be feared, _mo chuisle,_ ’ he murmurs so that only she can hear, tentatively releasing his hold on his son to cup her chin, holding her gaze. ‘I’m here now. I willnae leave ye. I promise _.’_ She smiles back in grateful recognition, a tentative wisp of emotion and nods, eyes suddenly brimming.

Brianna completes them, resting her chin on his shoulder, reaching down to cup her clasped hands over his heart. ‘You’re truly well, Da?’ Her voice is caught, nuzzled in the pit of his shoulder blade.

 

The ghosts of long forgotten moments come back with the question. Moments when she had come to the study and curled catlike at his feet beside the small wood burning stove; dissecting her day with him, recounting the way the shadows of the sun had lit up the house as she had run down the hill from the Broch with Bran-a brindled blur streaking ahead through the heathers’ blazing carpet, or else the blazing arguments that came later, thrown at him in the days leading up to his departure for the front.

 

She had been an angry girl then, an untameable spirit who did not know how to quench her fire; a lonely child with tangled, unravelling plaits and scabbed knees peeping out from under her skirt. A child who had kissed his cheek fiercely through the smoke and noise of Inverness railway station as the men were piped aboard and made him promise through blazing, bloodshot eyes that he would come back to them.

 

‘Aye, _mo nighean ruaidh’,_ he murmurs, hoping that one day, one day soon, he will be able to make it up to her.

 

 Out of all his children, Brianna had taken his need to serve his country the hardest. Brianna, who, out of all of them, he felt, held the closest ties to Lallybroch, who had begged and raged with him not to go, to stay where he was needed. Brianna, who, in her fits of rage, had told him that she would like nothing better than to die for the estate and let her body and blood be returned to the earth that had moulded it.

 

From the shadows at the foot of the bed, he hears the shove of a drawer being pulled closed. The shutter of Claire’s Baby Brownie Special camera that he had given her for her birthday seven years previously, captures the scene with a satisfying ‘click.’

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please feel free to read and review!
> 
> Comments, suggestions, constructive criticisms etc are like chocolate to my brain!
> 
> Much love and enjoy x


	6. Conversations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On the morning of VE Day, Claire and Jamie try to come to terms with what they have lost and all that they hold dear in this new future.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to everyone who has taken the time to read and review this! Your support and encouragement mean the absolute world to me and I can't thank you enough for all your kind words!

8th May 1945

Morning

April has slipped unnoticed into May when the war finally comes to an end.

 

The roses on Ellen Mackenzie’s briar are beginning to flower; flushes of pale pink glistening to darkest scarlet framing the parlour window. The spring lambs have been brought out onto the moor, skittering after their mothers over the rocks, plunging headfirst into the heather.

 

Claire lays Jamie’s breakfast of parritch, milk, bread and honey on the bed and throws open the windows; letting the crisp air shiver and swirl into the room, dislodging the cobwebs and memories of those terrifyingly lonely nights of fever and fear. She breathes in deeply, allowing the tantalizingly sweet hints of spring envelop her, the soft morning light flooding the room, leaning on the windowsill listening to the pewitts and skylarks dance through the blazing heather.  

 

She can hear the children hurrying through the house in a whirlwind of noise, William’s alto voice rising in plaintive wail for his sisters to hurry up, Faith replying in distinctly harried tone and Claire feels a small smile creep to her lips, grateful beyond measure that she can still hear such sweet sounds. The creak of a door opening somewhere, the faint hum of the radio as Big Ben’s chimes bring in the hour and Bran’s booming bark add to the chaotic symphony mixed with Brianna raising her voice about something to do with their Murray cousins that Claire can’t catch.

 

‘Sassenach,’ Jamie’s voice is low and groggy, still caught up in the realms of sleep. It is a healing sleep that his body needs desperately and Claire bites the inside of her lip, trying to make up a valid reason for waking him.

 

His face is still drawn, though there are some hints of colour blooming against his cheek that she is grateful for; the lines and bends of his bones more prominent now than she can ever remember them. His eyes still hold remnants of the haunted, sunken look that she remembers seeing at the station but not truly taking in, the joy of their reunion overshadowing the desperate diagnosis that she had known must be made soon.

Slipping the breakfast tray onto his knees, she slowly takes his maimed hand, the one that he had nearly lost the use of in a motorbike accident, eighteen years ago when Faith was no more than a wished-for thought. The one where she can now feel the jarring of fractured bones not properly healed, hear the hitched intake of breath as a funnel of pain ripples through the stiff digits. His third finger has healed badly from whatever broke it, the jagged splinters of the metacarpal bone rising through the weight of skin and muscle tissue.

 

She remembers the weight of her trembling hands as she read the faint words smudged in charcoal that had made her fear the worst.

 

**‘I tried to question the guards, but was forced back and have two broken fingers for my trouble. Dinna fash yourself, _mo Sorcha,_ I can bear their pain.’**

 

 _But can you? Truly?_ She finds herself thinking desperately, watching him under her lashes. _Dear God, Jamie, what did they do to you?_

 

‘How are you feeling?’

 

Slowly she moves towards the bed and helps him sit, one hand firmly against his back, the other still clasping his hand. The span of his shoulders expands under the shirt at her touch, a small sound that could be a groan or a sob resounding in his throat.

 

‘I…’ He stops, pausing, his eyes suddenly very blue and hooded.

 

He swallows painfully, looking away from her towards the open window and the heather and gorse covered tapestry of the moor beyond.

 

‘Weak, _Sassenach._ And no but a little bit afraid’. There is a shadow of a smile there, a desperate, anguished smile and she grips his hand tighter, willing him to try to find a way to express whatever it is that is laying heavily on his heart.

 

Below their feet, the house sighs in the silence.

 

‘For so long, I wished to lay the world at your feet, Claire. To…To give you and the bairns and my tenants something that mattered. ‘Twas the one thing that kept me alive at parts, the need to care for you and protect you; but now I have nothing tae give ye! I canna even stand wi’out you to help me!’

 

His words seem to drop through him like stones.

 

They echo off the walls, broken only by the thin bleats of lambs searching for their mothers on the moor.

 

She stares at him, the proud, bold outlines of face caught in sunlit shadow, his body suddenly sagging without the weight of his outburst, his shoulders slumped in pained despair.

 

‘You have me,’ she whispers at last, her voice suddenly on the verge of tears. ‘And the children. We won’t leave you.’

 

‘Aye’, his voice is quivering a bit, the hand that is clasped in hers trembling. She presses her fingers against the calloused knuckles in a gesture that she hopes speaks of reassurance.

 

‘Aye, and that’s the hell of it. In the army, I had purpose, _mo nighean don._ I was able tae lead men and know that what I’d taught them was correct. That I had done everything in my power to hope that they’d come back. I… I was able to fight for what I knew was good and true and right. But then, after the Abbeville Bridgehead, we were…’

 

He pauses for breath; a heaving, rasping sound that makes her heart twist in her chest. She knows that he isn’t really looking out at the moor at all, but instead seeing things that she has not been privy to, events that cannot bear being named.  

 

‘We were nay more than animals to them, _mo Sorcha.’_ He moves away from her, tugging his maimed hand out of her grasp. Claire can only nod, her heart aching for him. ‘And they did their damndest to make it so.’

 

‘Everything, our dignity, our humanity, was taken from us!’ The last words are spoken in a bite of derisive laughter, a flicker of something that she has never seen and can’t name flickering into his eyes that are dark with memories. A shudder ripples down Claire’s spine and she reaches for Jamie’s hand again, wanting something to hold, wanting to reassure him that she is still there.

 

‘But somehow, I could still write to you and by some small mercies, I received your letters, but it wasna the same.’

 

‘I know’, she hears herself reply with quiet forcefulness, unsure where she has found the words. It hadn’t been the same. It hadn’t been the same to read faded, often illegible words that had been written months, maybe even years, before.

 

‘It wasn’t the same, because I couldn’t see the lassies, I…I couldna even picture my son as a lad grown’, he pauses, voice suddenly strangled with barely controlled tears.

 

‘And then, when I received my discharge papers, I couldn’t even think of what to do next. I kent that I must return to ye and the bairns, but I didna ken what else I was returning to, if ye ken what I mean.’ He turns to look at her, eyes suddenly very wide and blue, pleading with her to understand.

 

‘I know.’ Outside, the sky is a shifting blue streaked through with white, soft clouds studded with the promise of rain, the wind shifting against the glass.

 

‘You feel as though your ties to the earth are broken,’ she murmurs, remembering the endless nights when she had woken to a ghost of a memory lying beside her, when she had walked down to the Home Farm, seeing the tenants, people whom she knew and trusted, people she had treated when they were ill, tip their bonnets to her in a respectful sort of silence that she had not felt she deserved. Remembers the long and lonely hours after the children had gone to bed when she had sat in the parlour by the dying fire and listened to the wireless or scanned the lists of the dead in the papers, wanting and yet too afraid to truly know.

 

‘Aye’, he murmurs, unshed tears leaking from half closed eyes, leaning back against the pillows. ‘And that’s the worst of it, isn’t it?’

 

‘It is’, she cannot fault his logic as she scrambles up onto the bed behind him, pillowing his head in her lap. His hair is bristling under her touch, still not fully recovered from the barber’s shears.

 

A warm grunt of contentment rumbles through the back of his throat as he leans back against her breast. Her hands work slowly, moulding themselves to the clean, bold lines of his neck and shoulders, seeking the broad, flat planes of his shoulder blades, caressing each knob of vertebrae that she can find.

 

‘I love you. The children love you, more than you can ever know.’ The words are barely whispered, brushed in a kiss at the nape of his neck.

 

‘I know _mo Sorcha,’_ he replies, his warm breath filling her own lungs with the promise of love, the kiss soft and slow and salty on her lips. ‘How could I ever forget?’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please feel free to read and review!
> 
> Comments, suggestions, questions, constructive criticisms etc are like chocolate to my brain!
> 
> Much love and enjoy x


	7. Victory in Europe Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As Britain celebrates the end of the war in Europe, Claire and Jamie face the ghosts of their past and look forward to a new future together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to everyone who has taken the time to read and review this! Your support and encouragement mean the absolute world to me and I can't thank you enough for all your kind words!

8th May 1945

Evening 

They lie in the tangle of blankets until the evening light begins to dip over the moor, bathing the bed in a sea of tawny fire.

 

Jamie’s nose is buried in the pit of her shoulder, his arms strong and safe as they encircle her. His smell, sweet and sharp and homely makes her bury closer, the prickles of three days’ beard growth sharp over her fingers as she shifts to trace the line of cheek and jaw, revelling in the weight of him.

 

His face is sharp and caught in the shadows as she shifts to look at him, the dying light picking out lines and bends and whorls that she had forgotten, catching at the red-gold stubble of his beard, illuminating the small flickers of silver here and there that she has never had the chance to see. Her fingers fly over the smattering of freckles fanning out over the bridge of the long, straight nose, reaching up to lose themselves in the slowly returning curls, her palms cupping themselves round the solid curve of his skull.

 

‘I love you,’ she murmurs, the words hanging in the soft, thick air swirling with the evening's coming chill. From the open window, the faint rumbling calls of ewes picking their way back to their lambs cut across the moor. ‘So much.’

 

One corner of his mouth lifts in response into a smile of startling sweetness and she stares. He seems fast asleep, the deep, dreamless sleep of one in desperate need of healing, the long parti-coloured lashes resting dark on his cheeks. The smile hovers over his lips like a touch of a flame, flickering for a moment before it disappears. He sighs against her skin; a deep, rumbling sound that makes the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end and relaxes, his body turning limp in her arms.

 

‘Oh, Christ, Jamie,’ she whispers, feeling the sharp, hot prick of tears sting her eyes. It has been years since she has seen him smile in his sleep like this. She has seen it with William, sitting by his bed in the quiet of the night, watching the eyes that held his father’s slant, his face with the same high, fine cheekbones utterly relaxed, the faint curve of his lips flickering unconsciously for a moment so fleeting it was gone before she truly registered it.

 

‘Oh love.’ She hasn’t seen that sweet smile on her husband’s lips since the first days of their marriage, when she would wake in the night, still acclimatising herself to the strange blue wallpapered room and the warm heaviness of the man who lay beside her.

 

 _‘He’d always do it as a wee lad,’_ Jenny had told her on one of those strange, frightening days after war had been declared and Jamie and Ian had gone away to France to assist in training their new recruits for the fight that so many would not return home from.

 

They had been sitting in the kitchen, listening to the prattle of the children- Faith, Brianna, Young Jamie, Maggie and Kitty with little Janet and Michael trailing behind as their elder siblings thundered their way through the house. William and Young Ian, still bairns at the time, were fast asleep in their mother’s arms. Sometimes she still feels the warm weight of her son, his sleeping face mirroring that of the man that slumbers beside her almost exactly, soften in blissful helplessness in her arms.

 

 ‘ _I think it means he’s happy.’_

* * *

 

She wakes again to the sound of knocking on the bedroom door.

 

Downstairs, a door clunks shut and Claire thinks she can hear Bran’s booming welcoming bark, although why he should be welcoming anyone tonight, is beyond her.

 

‘Come in?’ Beside her, Jamie shifts in his sleep, reaching blindly for her hand. She gives it gladly, pressing the knurled, thick fingers firmly between her own as she struggles to sit up, ready to greet whoever it is wanting entrance. 

 

‘Mam? Da?’

 

Brianna.

 

‘Yes, _mo chuisle_?’ Claire cannot help but smile at the sight of her youngest daughter as she twirls into the room, dressed in a dark green, sequinned flapper dress with an asymmetric hemline that Claire vaguely remembers from the heady nights of officer’s dance parties in Inverness that Jamie had taken her to in the first few months of their courtship. Dances that had involved too much drink and laughter and the fire-like thrill that had spread up from her stomach at the thought of being seen on the arm of a captain in the 4 th Seaforth Highlanders.

 

They had both been younger then.

 

‘Haven’t ye heard?’ She is breathless and laughing, her hair loosened from its plaits, curling about her shoulders in a mane of copper and cinnabar, roan and russet.

 

‘Heard what, _a_ _leannan_?’ Jamie’s voice is slow with sleep, the words posed in a careful question as he pushes himself further up onto the pillows.

 

‘The war. The war’s ended!’ Brianna’s eyes are shining as she skitters round the bed to press a kiss on Claire’s cheek, her breath smelling of bonfire smoke.

 

It takes a moment for Claire to process her daughter’s words.

 

Takes another for her to realise what they mean.

 

‘Don’t you see?’ Her daughter’s voice seems very far away; her question persistent, agitated, but not important.

 

‘Jesus H Roosevelt Christ’, she hears herself murmur, the words thick and cold against her lips.

 

For a moment the room swims before her eyes, Brianna’s bright, ecstatic face morphing into that of an RAF airman who had been shot down over the North Sea after the retreat from Dunkirk.

 

_He’d been brought in without his boots, his bluish toes ripe and stinking. The bandage that had supported his head had been soaked to crimson and black, the black bulge of his Adam’s apple throbbing up and down in agonising slowness, the black hole for a mouth gaping wide.  She remembers the weight of the stretcher bumping painfully into her leg, a white protuberance of bone glistening from the mangled mess of wound and battledress that gaped at the boy’s thigh. His eyes had been squeezed tightly shut and every step had given him pain. He’d groped for her hand and whispered the word ‘Mother’, blindly with a soft Ulster accent that had made her heart weep._

_He couldn’t have been much older than sixteen, one of the many who had lied about their age, little older than Brianna._

_When they had finally reached the ward, she had been called away and hadn’t seen him again._

_He had been one of many, she had told herself afterwards. One of the faceless, nameless many in a sea of dirty green battledress and soiled bandages.  Those men that had not looked like men at all, but instead had seemed to her like a wild, primeval race with their oil stained hands and burnt faces, their hastily tied on labels from the casualty receiving stations crusted with oil and muck, their eyes wide and unseeing as they waited for orders that would never come._

 

_God, where were those boys now?_

 

‘Claire.’ The pressure of a thumb pushing down on the back of her hand brings her back.

 

Jamie’s face swims in and out of her line of vision, his eyes wide and blue and full of ghosts as she shakily returns the pressure, desperately trying to eradicate the haunting image of that youthful blackened face crying out in silent agony. By the bed Brianna is wide eyed and silent, looking terribly young in her green dress; a mere child playing at dressing up in an old piece of sequinned velvet.

 

‘I… I’m sorry,’ she swallows thickly, clamping her lips firmly over the lump of emotion that is catching in her throat and threatening to reduce her to tears.

 

‘As am I, _Sorcha,’_ he whispers, drawing her close, the beat of his heart a comforting thud against her breast, his voice thick and broken in her hair. ‘As am I.’

 

* * *

 

 

She settles on his dress uniform.

 

Her fingers are numb as she slowly pulls the kilt away from its’ wrapping, the paper peeling away like a snake’s shredded skin, skimming over the thick, waulked wool as she brushes away the worst of the dust.

 

The tartan is heavier than she can ever remember it being, the kilt lying like the pelt of some dead animal across her arms, a pool of darkness against the crumpled, white sheets. The dirk gleams against the dark ground, the golden bands that encase the pommel shining in the weak May sunlight.

 

 Jamie sits on the bed, silently watching her. He is already dressed in the linen shirt with the starched collar pressing up against his chin scraped clean by the razor, the skin hard and warm and vulnerable. His right hand is flat against the coverlet, the stiff fingers drumming a tuneless tattoo, his throat working soundlessly, forming words that he cannot speak aloud. His eyes hold a deep, old look, one that speaks of faraway ghosts, memories to which she can lay no claim to.

 

Brianna has disappeared, pulled back to the noise of the ceilidh, the hum of music and laughter from the front hall sounding as if it is coming from another world.

 

‘You don’t have tae do this Claire’, his voice is a murmur in the quiet, eyes fixed on the heavy, dark mass of fabric beside him. There is a flicker of what could be distaste in his eyes as he takes in the kilt, the fingers of his maimed hand tracing the lines of the sett, crimson and white check on black ground, the stiff fingers shuddering slightly.

‘Yes,’ she says softly, moving closer to the bed so that she can see him fully and he her. His eyes are hooded in the faded light, his cheekbones pressing close to bright, firm skin. ‘I do.’

 

The words are spoken with more force than she intends and he looks at her then, startled. They fall through her like stones plunging into the black water of the main loch, rippling out through the silence.

 

‘And do you know why I need to do this? I need to do this because if we don’t, then I don’t know if we’re ever going to get the chance again.’

 

He grimaces as her words hit him, a flicker of something strange passing through his eyes. She cannot help but glare at him, moving to kneel at his feet, firmly taking his hands in hers.

 

‘I need you, Jamie. The children, Jenny and Ian, Kirsty and Hector and Mairi, the tenants, they all… They need to see you. They need to know that you’re here, you’re… You’re alive.’ His bones grind together under her grip and she has to bite her lip to stop herself from crying out as he winces, the sound a bloody breath in his throat. She can see the rise and fall of his lungs through the linen of his shirt, the faded ghosts of cuts and bruises stark against the white fabric.

 

‘Alive.’ His voice is little more than a whisper as he looks up, his eyes holding the blank, unfocused gaze that she had seen so many times with the soldiers under her care, but never thought, never dreamed that she would see in her husband’s eyes.

 

The doctors who had seen such things before called it the thousand-yard stare and now she understands why.

 

‘Am I that? Do ye ken what I see when I close my eyes at night, Claire?’

 

The question is asked without emotion, his hands slowly working their way out of her grasp. Each bone trembles visibly as the memories that she knows that he will never truly forget are dragged once more to the surface.

 

She can only shake her head, unable to find words adequate to try and comfort him.

 

‘I see men- nay, they werena men. They were boys, _boys_ little older than Faith or Brianna trapped in a tunnel. We’d been surrounded by them at St-Valery, ye ken and even with…’

 

He stops and swallows audibly, his hands balled into fists, the veins standing stark and blue against the kilt, his eyes squeezed tightly shut.

 

‘Even wi’ the Frogs fighting as infantry at St. Pierre-le-Viger we didna have enough men to overrun their guns. I…  The town pleaded wi’ us to surrender, but the men werena having any of it. We were virtually out o’ ammunition before…’

 

_Before the surrender._

 

He is visibly shaking now, each breath a bloody exertion of effort, body wracked by silent sobs, shying away from her touch.

 

Out of the corner of her eye, she sees the bedroom door creak open an inch and Brianna’s head peer round, her eyes widening in horror at the sight of Jamie curling on himself, shaking at memories he cannot share.

 

‘Mam? What shall I do?’ She sounds far older than fourteen.

 

‘Go and find Uncle Ian, Bree. Please. Tell him…’ She swallows and tries again. ‘Tell him that your Da needs him.’

 

* * *

 

It feels like an age before she hears the familiar, uneven clunk of Ian’s wooden leg on the stairs. Feels even longer before Ian’s weathered, homely face comes into view, hazel dark eyes narrowed in concern.

 

Brianna hovers in the doorway, jiggling from foot to foot, but Claire has no heart to send her away. Not yet.

 

‘Jamie?’ Very slowly, Ian eases himself onto the bed beside Claire, facing his brother-in-law.

 

‘Jamie, it’s me. Ian. What is it, _a charaid?’_

 

Jamie is a hunched, silent blur of pain and memories in front of him.

 

Slowly, he lifts his head to Ian, eyes bloodshot, fists shaking. His next words are spoken so quietly that Claire thinks for an instant she hasn’t heard them.

 

‘I keep seeing him. He’s a Cameron infantry man an’ he’s falling against the ropes. He’s tae weak to shiver and I keep trying to call out to him, trying to pick him up, get him back on his feet, but he doesn’t… He won’t… He… He _can’t…_ ’

 

‘Oh Jesus,’ Ian whispers, the words barely a breath. ‘Oh God, Jamie.’ He is on his knees, holding Jamie’s head fiercely against his shoulder.

 

‘This isna France, lad,’ he says at last, his voice hoarse, pulling Jamie closer. _Or Salzburg. Or Bavaria._ From the doorway, Brianna chokes back a sob. ‘You’re home. _We’re both home_.’

 

* * *

 

 _Home,_ Claire thinks, four and a half hours later, when the lamps are low and the gramophone is slowly winding through the classics, the room an ebbing sea of drink and joy and laughter. William is curled up on the sofa in the hallway with Brianna watching over him fiercer than any guard dog and she can hear Jenny murmuring to Ian about taking the brood of little Murray’s home.

 

Only Faith is still awake and dancing slowly with Johnny McPherson, a tall, dark haired, eighteen-year-old lad whose father rents one of the smaller farms on the east side of the estate and does odd-jobs around the grounds.

 

They are swaying tiredly in the hall to the last dance, a slow St Bernard’s waltz that she’s grateful for, cheek pressed against Jamie’s jacket. The steady beat of his heart, the weight of his left hand curled protectively around her back, makes her sigh, tears pricking at her eyes.

 

‘ _Sorcha_?’ Slowly, she lifts her eyes to him, taking in the burning shadows of those deep blue pools that she had fallen in love with all those years ago, dipping and turning in the glow of the lamplight through Inverness’s ballroom. Those eyes that she had fallen in love with are the same, still burning with the same unadulterated love.

 

Older, chiselled, drawn, wiser now.

 

Her husband is a _duine uasal._

 

A man who has always known his worth.

 

‘I’m happy, Jamie. Truly. I… I just wish…’

 

‘I know,’ he murmurs quietly, kissing her quietly, reaching up to thumb away her tears, trying to tell her all the things that he has stored in his heart that could not be said on paper.

 

‘We have each other now, _mo ghraidh.’_

They take the last turn before he finishes and they draw apart, his voice thick and husky in the quiet.

 

‘And I willnae leave you again. Ever. Ye have my word.’

 

She answers him with a kiss. She finds his hand, the stiff and crooked fingers warm and firm under her lips and then his mouth, soft and aching in the quiet. His lips answer hers, speaking of haven and promise, love and anguish all mingled in the salt-sharp taste of tears as a muffled cheer erupts from the back of the hall.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please feel free to read and review!
> 
> Comments, suggestions, constructive criticisms etc are like chocolate to my brain!
> 
> Much love and enjoy x


	8. Breakfast

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Jamie Fraser comes down to the kitchen for the first time, the end of the war is just over two weeks old.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to everyone who has taken the time to read and review this! Your comments, suggestions, constructive criticisms have been utterly invaluable and I do hope that you enjoy this chapter!

Mid May 1945

When Jamie Fraser comes down to the kitchen for the first time, the end of the war is just over two weeks old.

 

Brianna hears the soft rumble of her father’s voice, loved and lost and longed-for for so many years, words that she can’t discern spoken with such tenderness that they squeeze her heart, emotions that she has fought for so long welling up in her throat. She is curled up on the kitchen sofa with her copy of Mary Shelley’s _Frankenstein_ open on her lap, but  at the sound of her father’s voice the atmospheric prose that she loves has become meaningless.

 

‘Brianna? Can ye put the kettle on?’ The kitchen door bangs shut and Faith hurries in, clutching ration cards and two milk bottles, her face flushed and rosy from the wind. The milk bottles clunk against the scrubbed, knife scarred wood, the ration cards soft and tatty as she tucks up them up on the mantelpiece behind their father’s framed photograph in his battledress, taken just a few weeks before war had been officially declared.

 

‘How was it, Faith?’ Bree watches as Faith unravels herself out of their grandfather’s greatcoat, which she has claimed as her own and plonk herself down at the kitchen table, rubbing her eyes wearily with the heels of her hands.

 

‘Long’, she says after a beat of silence, her voice caught and strained with memory. ‘And hard. I saw Lizzie McGilivray, ye ken, in the queue for the butcher’s. She’s in the family way, _again_!’

 

‘Again? Should we tell Mam?’

 

Brianna shudders inwardly at the thought of Lizzie, who was two years older than Faith, expecting her second child. The first had been a still birth on a wild January night where the wind had wailed like a _Ban Sith_ , welcoming in the spirits of the dead. The bairn had been a little girl born two months too early that not even Claire could save. She had had translucent skin the colour of pearls and a shock of dark hair, her narrow, motionless chest blue from significant lack of oxygen. Brianna remembers hearing the front door slamming on Claire at the dead of night, remembers curling up against the bannister as she watched her mother converse in low voices with Faith, her face crumpled with exhausted emotion.

 

At the age of nineteen, it had felt far too great a burden for Lizzie to bear. A year later, it feels greater still.

 

‘Mam will ken already, ye know how she is,’ Faith’s eyes are bright with cold, one brow raising as the kettle begins to whistle. Brianna is glad of the work, pulling out mugs and the Fraser silver teapot that had been a wedding present from Brian and Ellen Fraser on the marriage of their youngest child.

 

‘What does Mam ken already?’

 

William’s head peers round the door as Bran trots back inside, yellow eyes gleaming as he yawns and stretches, wolf-like paws clicking on the tiles.

 

‘That Lizzie McGillivary…’ Brianna begins, assessing her brother’s smut stained face and rosy cheeks, his body radiating heat and the ghosts of wood smoke as he swipes a piece of cold toast off the table and curls up on the sofa, fondling absentmindedly with Bran’s silken ears. He has been working at the bonfire again, no doubt- but whatever yarn that is blossoming on her tongue is cut short by a sharp look from Faith.

 

‘Nothing,’ their older sister says as she puts down the teapot, narrowing her eyes at Brianna who sticks out her tongue in reply.

 

‘There’s nothing wrong _whatever_ with Lizzie, is there Bree?’ Her voice holds the sharpness of a war sister twice her age; a tone that rings with pure Nightingale, used for tearful orderlies, disruptive patients or anxious next of kin. It took years to perfect, each word daring anyone to contradict her.

 

Brianna will not rise to her bait, but contents herself to glare at Faith, who ignores her, gathering together plates and mugs and cutlery for breakfast, absently twisting an escaped curl round a finger as she does so. Brianna watches her crack eggs into the frying pan and disappear into the freezing larder, to come out again with a brown paper package that holds the final rashers from last year’s bacon.

 

On the sofa, Willie has already lost interest, his face sticky with jam and crumbs as he feeds Bran another strip of toast.

 

In the beat of silence that follows, there comes the soft tread of feet on the stairs.

 

* * *

 

 

‘Da!’ It is Willie who notices him first, although he is hard to miss, framed in the doorway in civilian clothes that look so strange to Brianna’s memories of him in uniform. They are pre-war clothes, the trousers are slightly too short, and the shirt hangs off him, the blue-and-white striped collar crumpled against the dark green wool of the waistcoat. But the eyes that meet hers are still the same, endless baths of crinkled, smiling blue that she could lose herself in and for that small mercy, she’s grateful.

 

Ignoring his mother and sisters, Willie forgets his earlier shyness and flings himself at Jamie, catching his father around the waist, forcing him backwards with a cry of delight.

 

‘How is it, then, _mo bhalaiach?’_ Jamie inquires amiably, the deep, soft rumble of her father’s Gaelic making her heart sing. Willie’s laughter is infectious as Jamie catches him squarely round the middle and pulls him up into his arms. From the doorway Brianna sees her mother smiling softly at the sight, her hair chaotic and curled about her face; amber eyes shining, looking more relaxed than she’s seen her for years.

 

‘Auld Jock Kirby’s got a bonfire happening up in the north sheep pasture an’…’ Willie snuggles close to Jamie, burying his head against the pit of his shoulder blade. His hair is a halo of untameable copper flecked curls, blazing against the soft, dark fabric of Jamie’s waistcoat. For a moment, a flicker of something deep and painful passes over her father’s face; a look that is filled with simple unadulterated adoration at the sight of his son.

 

‘Have ye been out to see it then, _mo mac_?’ The boy nods, grinning toothily.

 

Brianna cannot help but smile, flashing a tentative glance of reconciliation in Faith’s direction.

 

She smiles back, moving forward to take their father’s hands; cradling the large, war scarred palms between her own, all grievances momentarily forgotten.

 

‘There’s breakfast ready for ye if ye’d like it, Da?’ Her voice is soft and encouraging, a true ward sister.

 

Out of all of them Faith has been the one who has seen Jamie Fraser at his worst, has been the one who was able to understand and despite the sudden tightening in her chest at the sight of her father and older sister, Brianna is aware that she cannot allow her pride to overwhelm her, that she must find it in herself to not begrudge them this moment.

 

‘Aye, lass,’ he says carefully, his expression slowly transforming from one of careful blankness to soft amusement, cocking an eyebrow in Claire’s direction and winking at Brianna. ‘A wee bite to sup wouldna go amiss, if ye please.’

 

* * *

 

 

It is everything that Brianna could have hoped for. It is Jamie sharing pieces of toast with Claire, slipping a scrap of bacon under the table for Bran, whose yellow eyes are gleaming with delight at the return of his master.

 

 It is the hum of the kettle, the scrape of cutlery on plates and bowls, the splash of the milk jug, the steady tick of the clock in the hallway, the whisper of a few stray tendrils of her grandmother’s rose briar whispering against the window.

 

It is being curled up on the sofa, cradling her mug of tea and watching her father stand, the light from the windows catching on the crown of ruddy curls to fill the kettle from the AGA, his presence filling the room; reassuring it of something that had been lost and now regained, pressing a light kiss to her Mother’s forehead.

 

It is an act that she saw so often as a child, but now, only now, does she realise how much her heart has ached for it in the six long and lonely years of separation. How much her parent’s hearts must have ached for a love that they might never have had the chance to share again.

 

It is everything that her lonely heart had cried for during the long summer evenings in 1942 in the heat of the Highland dim, when there had been no end in sight for the war and no chance of their father ever coming home.

 

It is everything that she had screamed for as she stood on the hill outside the broch looking down at the house, or wept about- curled up within the cold, stone walls, her face pressed firmly into Bran’s fur, not caring who heard her cry or saw the tears that she did not wish to stem.  

  

‘Brianna?’ She doesn’t hear Faith come up beside her, slipping an arm over her shoulder.

 

‘Aye?’ Faith’s blue cat eyes are shining, her face split into a grin as Brianna shifts so that she can snuggle up on the sofa beside her.

 

‘Are ye happy now, _a piuthar_?’

 

She can’t reply but find Faith’s fingers entwining them with her own, thinking of the lost and angry girl of three years past who had barely spoken to her sister. The girl who had wept and raged and lain awake at night watching the moonlit shadows spill out from the curtains onto the bedroom floor, waiting for the stamp of boots on the staircase, wishing for something that at the time had felt as impossible as the thought of travelling to that distant planet. The girl who had listened to their mother’s sobbing midnight keen in the bathroom and felt her heart surge with helpless anger for the man who had gone away to fight a war that had not been his to fight. A man who had left them, left her, to navigate the perilous journey of the war at home alone.

 

She doesn’t know who that girl is anymore, feeling a weight on her heart lighten as that part of her that she has harboured in silence for so long slowly slips out of the kitchen door, hoping that it never has to return.  

 

‘I am’, she manages at last, the words thick in her throat. ‘Faith, I…’

 

‘I know, _mo leannan,’_ Faith murmurs, the weight of her fingers carding their way through her hair in soft, deft strokes.

 

‘I know.’

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please feel free to read and review!
> 
> Comments, suggestions, constructive criticisms etc are like chocolate to my brain!
> 
> Much love,
> 
> Phoenixflames12 xxx


	9. Dulce et Decorum est

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Frasers attend Catholic Mass in Broch Mordha and Jamie tries and fails to banish the ghosts of the war, finding solace in the love of his wife and youngest child.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to everyone who has taken the time to read and review this! Your support and encouragement have meant the absolute world to me!
> 
> The title comes from Wilfred Owen's Great War poem 'Dulce Et Decorum Est'- published posthumously in 1920. Owen's mother received news of his death on the 4th November 1918 at the Sambre-Oise Canal on Armistice Day, as the Church bells were ringing out to celebrate the end of the war.

 

‘Are you sure that you want to do this?’

 

His hands are trembling under hers as she slowly draws them away from the tie that Jamie is struggling to knot. She can’t remember the last time that she’d seen him in his Sunday suit of black breeks, white shirt, tie and jacket. Can’t quite remember when she had last seen him without the haggard, haunted shadows that still caress his lower lids or the far away gaze that he tries so bravely to conceal for the children.

 

A muscle in his throat is working soundlessly and he shakes his head as if to dislodge a painful memory.

 

Her fingers skim over the silkiness of the tie as she pulls the knot tight, her hands resting lightly on his shoulders; feeling the broad planes of his bones expand under her palms as he nods.

 

‘Aye, _Sassenach._ I canna quite explain it but…’ His voice is so soft that she thinks that she hasn’t heard him.

 

‘I need to, ken? I need to… To remember them. To tell those who remain that they havena been forgotten.’

 

The look that he gives her is very deep and very blue, one that is pleading with her to understand emotions that cannot be articulated into words just yet. Words that in the dusky stillness of the kirk at Broch Mordha would come naturally; but not here.

 

‘Those who remain’, she murmurs quietly, holding his gaze. ‘Those who survived with you?’

 

‘Aye,’ he replies quietly after a moment of silence. His pulse throbs steadily under her fingers as she looks down at their clasped hands, at his big, scarred knuckles weatherworn from years of unspoken toil solidly encasing her own which still sting with the ghosts of chilblains, the silver ring that he had slipped onto her finger in the soft May sunlight of their wedding day glittering against her skin.

 

The smile he gives her is soft and sad as he nods in agreement, catching at his mouth as he traces the shape of the cross against her own, his eyes full of a good many unreadable things.

 

‘May God and Mary bless ye, Sassenach,’ the words are thick with loving sorrow and make the breath that she’s holding hitch in her throat as he bends to kiss her.

 

* * *

 

 

The walk to Broch Mordha’s Catholic Kirk is one that he has taken many times. It is one that he would walk in his sleep during the long and lonely nights away from Lallybroch; first at boarding school and then later, when his heart yearned for the Highland heather and the soft, sharp cry of the moorland during his time at university in Edinburgh and officer’s training at Sandhurst.

 

He’d walk on his own then, meandering through the world of dreams, committing each twist and turn of the road to memory. Pressing each sprig of gorse festooned in yellow between his fingers, each clump of fiery purple heather firmly imprinted in the tapestry that made up ‘home’ in his mind.

 

But now, he walks accompanied. Now, he walks with Claire’s arm firmly tucked inside his own. Together they watch the children guddle about- Willie darting off ahead with Bran into the heather, Brianna tucking a posy of flowers into her plaits, Faith laughing as Willie tumbles back onto the path, presenting his sister with a posy of wild flowers only to disappear again.

 

‘Willie!’ Claire watches the bright crown of auburn curls dive back into the heather with a sinking feeling plummeting through her stomach, trying not to envisage the scrapes that Willie is capable of getting himself into.

 

‘We’re lucky, are we not, _mo nighean don?_ ’ Jamie’s voice is a contented murmur in her ear and, forgetting the lengthy list of misdemeanours that she knows their son is capable of, Claire beams up at him, her eyes shining.

 

‘I suppose we are’. Her grip on his arm tightens as they reach the crest of the hill that dips slowly down towards the Kirk and he bends to kiss her, the action soft and sweet, thick fingers reaching to tangle themselves in an escapee curl that has fought its way out of her hat.

 

It is a kiss that she has dreamt about for an eternity. One that is soft and slow; her husband’s broad, scarred palms reaching up to cup her cheek, laughter glittering in his lips. She finds his mouth, haven and love and promise radiating from every inch of him, fingers catching at his lips, drawing him to her. The world seems to stop as they stand there, caught up in the mysteries of each other, their bodies bathed in the soft light of early summer.

 

On the Kirk hill, the bell for Mass begins to chime and out of the corner of her vision, she thinks that she can see Willie scampering back to them, Bran lolloping behind him. He has lost his pullover, his shirt stained with grass and bracken, a tear scraping through one knee of black cloth. His eyes are bright, full of that guiless look of childhood innocence that she hopes he will not lose too quickly.

 

‘What _will_ we do with him?’ Jamie’s voice is a smile against her ear, eyes twinkling as their son careers up to them, tumbling over his feet and panting to catch his breath. His eyes widen slightly as he takes in his parents, Jamie’s arm slipping out of Claire’s to fold, giving his son a long, blue stare down his nose.

 

‘Faith an’ Bree have gone on ahead, I was… I…’

 

‘Mmphm’, Jamie makes a sternly Scottish noise at the back of his throat but says nothing.

 

Sensing his young master’s discomfort, Bran pads over and shoves his head under Willie’s arm; a low, soft, whine rumbling at the back of his throat.

 

‘That’s your good shirt, _mo chuisle,’_ Claire finds herself saying softly after a moment of uncomfortable silence. ‘And your breeks.’

_William’s things had been in the wash day pile in the scullery on Wednesday and as much as she loves her son, she does not want to imagine Glenda Fitzgibbon’s face at being given the same clothes twice in a row._

 

Willie nods, eyes firmly planted on the path. Faith and Brianna have stopped walking and are waiting by one of the many boulders that had been resting places for weary travellers or pedlars passing through the village towards the estate or up into the crofts beyond. Standing on tiptoe Claire waves to them, mouthing that they will catch up soon and that they would give their apologies to Father Cameron for being tardy.

 

Down below, the bell’s chime is coming to a close.

 

‘Your Mam’s right, William. And it’s Mass, aye? We canna be seen as ragamuffins.’ The words are spoken with a gruff precision that Claire cannot remember ever hearing from him and the boy’s head jerks up, eyes wide with wordless reproach.

 

‘I… I dinna want that, Da and I kent fine it was Mass… I just..’ Willie trails off in a twitching gesture of impatience, amber eyes suddenly smarting with unwanted tears. He blinks rapidly, at this, roughly scrubbing the tears out with the back of his hand.

 

‘Aye’, Jamie says, more gently this time. Slowly, he disentangles himself from Claire and drops to one knee before the boy, digging in his coat pocket for a handkerchief.

 

Willie nods his thanks, making a masterful effort to control his tears as Jamie spits on the square of frayed cotton and swipes away the worst of the grime.

 

Claire finds herself swallowing thickly at the sight- the small, sturdy body of her son whom she has cherished with all her heart because of its’ connection with her husband, clinging to the man whom she had feared that she would never see again, the man who may never have had the chance to hold his son in a fatherly caress. The amber eyes are wide with a look that slowly slips into solemnity, one that is far too old for a boy of seven and three quarters.

 

‘Aye, I know ye did _mo mac._ I shouldna ha’ been rough wi’ ye. We’ll just get the worst of it off and then ye can ride on my shoulders ‘til we get to Kirk. Will that do ye?’ Something passes across Jamie’s face as he pulls their son roughly to him, the muffled words of comfort interspersed with murmured Gaelic that she can’t catch.

 

At length, he takes the boy’s arms from his neck and puts him away with a rueful smile, swinging him up onto his shoulders. Claire has to bite back a wince as she hears his breath hitch slightly as Willie settles himself, arms locked monkey fashion round his father’s neck, Bran trotting at his heels.  

 

* * *

 

 

He feels naked as he walks into Kirk; only the weight of Willie’s arms latched firmly round his neck keeping him from turning around and fleeing back into the safety of the village street.

 

The last time that he’d been in here was the Sunday before war had been officially declared.  He had been home on compassionate leave to say his farewells before being sent to Salisbury Plain to assist the raw recruits in their basic training. He remembers standing in the knave of the Kirk then as now, his knapsack stuffed with provisions and the compulsory MTP, his heart a rock in his chest.

 

Remembers seeing Claire nursing his sleeping son, the girls scampering about the pews with their cousins, Joe Fraser with Kirsty on his arm, flushed and bonny with baby Mairi and Hector, wide eyed and sticky mouthed from his toffees, clinging to her hand, Joe as tall and thin as he remembers but smiling, dark eyes glowing with life and light and happiness.

_A jam jar of harebells picked by Faith on that bright September morning standing on the kitchen table, catching the light._

_A sky the colour of blue wine, so bright and clear that he had thought he could drink it._

_A cloud passing over the kitchen window. The chatter of a blackbird, a blue tit and a nuthatch squabbling over the feeder._

_Four stubby plaits in varying degrees of untidiness._

_A baby’s cradle._

_Brianna’s face splattered with summer freckles as she hurtled into the kitchen with Bran at her heels, her dress smudged with grass stains along the hem. Faith beaming up at him, eyes shining as he had kissed the top of her head and told her that she was his best girl and to look after Claire and her siblings._

_Claire, in a camel coat and soft brown hat with a pheasant feather, holding sleeping William, reaching up on tip-toe to kiss him, a lingering kiss that had smelt of salt and mint and honey, one hand pressed firmly over his heart._

 

_‘I’ll see ye in France, then, mo chariad,’ Joe had said at Inverness. They’d clapped each other on the back and kissed their wives amid the wail of the pipes beginning to play, almost drunk on the promise that they’d be back before the year was out._

_Joe Fraser who now lay in an unmarked grave in deepest Austria, his body playing host to the larks and the bugs, regenerating life where his had ended._

_Joe Fraser whose funeral had been conducted in his lap, his eulogy whispered in Gaelic that was hushed and broken and bloody, begging for his body to be taken back to Scotland, for his soul to be remembered to Kirsty and his weans._

_Slean leat, mo chariad choir. Slean leat._

_The weight of his cousin’s head thick and heavy against his arms, his bloody, blackened hands limp against Jamie’s chest, blinded, milk white eyes burnt with distant stars, burning his cousin’s soul back to Lallybroch._

 

‘Jamie?’

 

He doesn’t hear Claire come up beside him, or Willie’s grip slowly loosening from around his neck, the boy’s soft weight thudding to the floor.

 

Doesn’t feel the weight of his wife’s hand reaching up to cup his cheek, pulling his face towards hers.

 

‘God, Claire! I…I canna…’ The words are lost to him, the memories flying free even before they’ve left his mouth.

 

Out of the corner of his vision, he can see people beginning to huddle together, eyes darting to him and back, flicking downwards when Brianna glares at them, daring them to come any closer.

 

Absurdly, he finds that he has the urge to laugh.

 

Laugh at the whole bloody parody of it all; the Laird of Lallybroch reduced to a cowering wreck, thought of nothing but a specimen in the freak show that had come to Fort William when he was a lad to be gawked and laughed and pointed at.

 

It was as if the war had never touched them.

 

It was as if the blackout blinds, the tattered ration cards, the hours spent shivering in the pre-dawn chill to queue for a loaf of bread, the wail of the air-raid sirens had not existed. It was as if the war had never happened and if it had, then it was finished, that door had been firmly shut and there was nothing left to be said.

 

_What did they know?_

_Had they fired a machine gun and felt the sudden, jolting pain of its recoil_ _into the pit of their shoulder, knowing that somewhere a thread of life had been snapped short?_

_Had they felt the soft, giving weight of a body slowly slip away through the tip of a bayonet, felt heart, brain, liver, lungs give way, once bright eyes rolling up into death?_

_Had they seen men who were not men anymore, but a strange sub-human race with blackened, sun burnt faces and gaping mouths scraped dry from lack of water, cradling the tattered ribbons of their feet and cried pitifully for their Mothers?_

_Had they seen a man scourged until there was nothing left to flog, a bloody body of a man that he had once known as Bobby Irving who had been a dock worker on the Clyde before signing up hanging like a butcher’s corpse from frozen ropes in the first bite of Austrian snow?_

_Had they ever murmured an Act of Contrition, the words their only comfort in the black hours of the night? Had they ever lain awake when the wind howled against the windowpanes or whistled through the scrap of a door, knowing that come the morning, they may be dead? Had they ever thought it a necessary precaution to cleanse the soul at night, their fingers trembling over their rosary beads, the age-old words a flickering, often guttering candle of hope to their fractured hearts?_

‘You don’t have to, Jamie. Just look at me. Please. Come back to me. Come back to us.’

 

Amber eyes burn back at him, the knave shrinking until all he can feel is the weight of her hands on his cheeks, the salt stained sharpness of her lips lingering in a soft and private kiss.

 

He nods, what little composure he had left crumbling into the weight of her palms. Somehow, his hands have become balled into fists, his clenched fingers tight and bloody, shaking with the effort of restraint. He relaxes them slowly, each bone shaking against Claire’s coat.

 

‘I’m sorry, lass,’ the words are frozen on his tongue, the world seeming to shrink still further until all he can hear of the church is a faint buzzing sound, like a hive about to swarm.

 

‘I know,’ she murmurs, slowly releasing the pressure of her hands on his face. ‘I know. Just breathe Jamie. You don’t have to do anything else.’

 

Her voice is a tear-stained whisper. Broken, lovely and filled with an understanding that he wishes she did not have to bear.

 

His arms find her shoulders, drawing her close. Each breath is a ragged, bloody effort, the wider world slowly swimming back into focus.

 

Somewhere in the slowly lightening fog there is a disturbance in the crowd. The whispers still as people turn to look, suddenly stricken silent. In the dusky gloom he hears Willie’s voice tremble in a tentative question.

 

‘Da…?’

 

The amber eyes that he loves so dearly are wide with worry, the dark auburn curls rumpled and sticking on end, face white and stark with fear.

 

_Tighearne Dhia!_

 

Claire nods, eyes gleaming back at him, drawing slowly back.

 

A strangled breath shudders out of him as he tries to stake a step towards his son and almost falls, collapsing back into Claire’s embrace.

 

_Oh Mary, Mother and Bride…_

‘Willie,’ his voice is a croak, shaking in the sudden hush. The muscles in his throat are knotted past the point of endurance and he has to fight for air, gulping it down like a drowned man.

 

 Before he’s fully aware of what he’s doing, the boy is in his arms, caught up in a terrible, inexplicable panic of love and worry. The boy’s heart begins to slow into a steady rhythm, his breathing hitched against his father’s shirt.

 

Jamie pulls him close, the flat, hard back expanding and contracting under the span of his palms, his son’s tearstained face burying deeper into the crook of his shoulder.

 

‘ _All right now,’_ he murmurs in Gaelic, the words coming faster than any English, remembering with a sudden pang a Sunday much like this one, when he had taken the squalling bundle that contained his son and rocked him back to sleep by the dying embers of the study fire, trying not to think about the next time he would see him.

 

 ‘ _It’s all right mo mac, Da’s here. Da’s here, a chuisle. It’s all right, a bhalaiach…’_

He closes his eyes and holds on tighter, relishing in the solid weight of small boy in his arms, murmuring words that slowly turn into nonsense.

 

He feels so big, the lines and bends of fledgling bones that he had not seen grow pressing hard against his clothes.

 

Slowly, William begins to untangle himself, his face red and wet and swollen, lower lip trembling with tears. When he speaks, his voice is the exact twin to his expression, one of such sheer wretchedness that Jamie feels his heart expand and break with love.

 

‘Ye won’t… Ye willnae leave…’

 

_How could a child of seven even think such things?_

‘No, _mo mac.’_ He speaks louder than he intends and several of the onlookers shoot him filthy looks.

 

‘No,’ he pulls Willie closer, the word vehement in the quiet, placing a soft, chaste kiss amid the soft, wet crown of curls. ‘Never.’

 

‘Never? I …I heard people… They said that… That once ye returned, ye’d leave us an’… An’ good riddance..’ He stumbles over the unfamiliar word, amber eyes glistening.

 

‘Those people dinna mean it, lad,’ he promises quietly, hoping fervently that what he says is true.

 

He can imagine it though. The Laird’s homecoming being discussed in hushed voices by the matriarchs of the village over their morning cups of tea or the farmers who’d come home earlier muttering it into their cups of stout at the pub.

 

No wonder Willie had heard it.

 

There are few secrets in a place like Broch Mordha.

 

 He’d have a lot of expeditions to make down to the village and up to the crofts, if it wasn’t.

 

‘They dinna?’ He feels Willie’s sniff, the tentative hope cracking at his voice.

 

Willie stirs, shifting his weight, assessing this new information under thick, wet lashes.

 

‘Nay, they dinna. And if they do- well, they’ll have your Da to answer to, wouldn’t they?’ Jamie tries a smile and Willie offers a shaky laugh in response, the fire slowly flickering back into his eyes.

 

‘Aye,’ Willie replies, taking a deep breath at last and shakily exhaling, a tentative smile flickering on his lips.

 

‘Aye’, he replies gruffly, biting back his own tears, his heart suddenly full, that flickering smile the only reassurance he needs of what the future holds.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please feel free to read and review!
> 
> Comments, suggestions, constructive criticisms etc are like chocolate to my brain!
> 
> Much love and enjoy x


	10. A Father's Promise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brianna tries to protect her Father from the malicious gossip that has sprung up about the Frasers in Broch Mordha

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to everyone who has taken the time to read and review this! Your support and encouragement has meant the word to me and has really helped getting this chapter into the open.

‘Yer Da’s a loony!’

 

The words hit her with all the heedless, senseless violence inflicted by children, crashing against the fragile barrier that she’s built to protect her heart like stones through glass.

 

‘Did ye hear me, _Brianna?’_ Her name is spat out with such spite to send tremors down her spine, her hands balled into fists that she keeps firmly clenched by her sides.

 

She knows that they want her to turn, to react, to show them how much this is hurting her.

 

She cannot do that.

 

‘My Da says he shouldna be allowed in public…’

 

A long breath struggles out of her, rasping and broken as she keeps staring straight ahead, her eyes fixed on the stone wall that encases the school yard. The sky is a cold, cool grey that is heavy with the promise of rain.

 

She thinks of her Da as she had seen him this morning, brushing back a lock of Claire’s hair to kiss the back of her neck as she fried bacon and eggs for a rare weekday breakfast outside of the hospital, a soft smile playing at his lips.

 

Thinks of the way that Auld Jock Kirby had met them outside the Kirk after the service, ushering her parents into the back of his battered Land Rover. How he had shared a deeply painful and meaningful look with her father, dark eyes full of an age old deference between laird and tenant. How Willie’s eyes had been fixed on their father’s face; his expression wide and tremulous at the same time, all the while keeping a firm grip on Faith’s hand.

 

They are coming closer; inch by inch, step by step, the heat of their breath prickling on her skin.

 

‘ _Iongantach’,_ they whisper, their voices hot and venomous, spitting out the Gaelic syllables.

 

She doesn’t look round.

 

‘ _Bu chòir dha a bhith glaiste suas_ ,’ she hears through the roar of the blood crashing through her ears.

_‘Chaidh a chur chun a 'chlaidheamh lòin,’_ every word whispered, every word dripping with malice.

 

She thinks of Willie, imagines the small, wiry body of her brother bristling beside her, his amber eyes that are so very like their mother’s, blazing with reproach and, at the same moment is glad that he isn’t here.

 

That he doesn’t have to hear this.

 

‘How dare you,’ she doesn’t know how she’s found her voice. It is low and dangerous and grates against her mouth, not like her voice at all. Blood is roaring through her ears and before she knows what she’s doing she has spun to face them, their faces blurring into one indistinguishable mass of hatred.

 

They seem to merge together; Angus Cameron, Maive MacGregor, Aidan Christie, Dougal Campbell, Fearghus MacDonald, all of them from her class, all of them who had been sitting in the pews at Kirk on Sunday.

 

All of them who had lost fathers in the war.

 

All of them who felt a bitter sense of resentment against her and her family for her Da’s return.

 

‘My Da..’ She thinks of her father hunched over the kitchen table when they had returned to the safety of Lallybroch, fists clenched, his knuckles whiter than porcelain, his breathing heaving with silent sobs through the silence, blind to everything but the weight of memories that he could not and would not share. Thinks of her parents dancing the last waltz at the ceilidh, two figures blurred and beautiful through the dipping lamplight, her father cutting a dashing figure in his dress uniform, blue cat eyes blazing with love, her mother glowing with a radiance that she had forgotten had existed.

 

Her fist strikes out, blindly searching for a target. Somewhere she hears a scream, feels the crunch of molars bite against her knuckles. A blinding flash of pain as hands grab for her hair, yanking at her plaits as she bites down a cry and twists free, fingers scrabbling at the hand that has caught the collar of her pinafore. Her nails find skin and yank down, a sudden scream of agony ripping against her own cheeks.

 

A desperate ripping sound and she shrieks, her breath caught and bloody in her throat. Her foot connects with a leg, an unknown fist trying to make contact with her abdomen. She tries to twist free, the world tipping away into a broken, bloody haze.

 

‘Enough!’

 

She is thrown back from whoever she has thrown herself at, pulled up onto her feet by a heavy hand that can only belong to Mr McAlister, the senior master.

 

The hand draws back with as much force as it had been applied and she staggers, her vision slowly clearing.

 

Mr McAlister’s face is the colour of granite, gaunt and shadowed in the grey light. Only his eyes seem alive, pools of fiery brown blazing out from the hollows above his cheekbones.

 

His is a glare that would send even the strongest boy’s bowels to water and Brianna swallows, forcing herself to hold his gaze.

 

‘My office, Miss Fraser. Now.’

 

* * *

 

 

 

At some point he uses the tawse on her, but she doesn’t feel it.

 

The pain is a strange numbness that creeps up from her hands, encircling her heart as she keeps her eyes fixed on the portrait of the King that hangs above the master’s desk.

 

Tears burn against her pupils, but she does not want to find the strength to shed them.

 

Instead, she conjures up every curse she knows, every word that she has heard her Mother spit out in a moment of anger when she thought that no one could hear, trying not to think of her Father’s face when he hears that she’s been beaten and sent home in disgrace.

 

‘ _Jesus H Roosevelt Christ… Bloody, fucking… Oh Da… Da, I am sorry!_

 

‘You may go,’ the tawse flicks back, her palms bruised and bloody and aching.

 

She will have to ask her Mother if she can use her concoction of lavender and comfrey to ease the burns.

 

His eyes take in her bloodied hands without comment, boring into hers like some grim foreteller of death.

 

She nods slowly, lifting her chin to meet his gaze, biting the inside of her lip until the metallic sting of blood blooms over her teeth.

 

Her cheek is smarting from the dig of the nails that scratched it, the weight of her hair falling in a tangled mane down her back.

 

 _You have no idea,_ she thinks in a moment of painful clarity, forcing herself to look back into those black, fathomless eyes. _You never did._

* * *

 

 

She doesn’t know how she manages to get out of the school yard without being followed.

 

Wide eyes follow her down the hall; accusing questions burning into her back and it is all she can do to hold her head high and stalk out into the yard, through the gate and out onto the village street.

 

Her lungs are trapped against her ribcage, the tears that she can’t shed burning against her eyes as she walks as fast as she can without breaking into a run down the main street. Each step is a mile in pain, a mile in keeping her head up and her eyes firmly away from prying glances.

 

The hills rear up ahead of her, their purple carpet crisp and clear in the afternoon light. The shadow of the broch is just visible, its north wall looming in welcome as she turns off the main road and scrambles over the gate that leads up onto Kirk hill and the moor. Rough wood splinters against the wool of her dress, digging under her fingernails as she pauses, letting the slap of the wind cool her burning cheeks.

 

The breath that comes with it is slow and agonising, pulling itself through her lungs in a broken ache; her tears mingling with the whispering keen of the grasses. It is a keen that she had tried to find words for when she had been much younger, walking over the moor with her hand firmly clasped within her father’s warm, calloused palm.

 

‘ _See there, mo nighean ruaidh?’ He had gripped her hand and knelt down to point out the shadow of a kestrel hovering out over the shadows of Creag Pitridh and Geal Cham gleaming white against the stormy sky and, just visible, the silver scar of Loch Eil jagged on the horizon._

 She doesn’t know why the memory has come back now, except that it had felt so good to be free in that moment, to not be worrying about Mam or William or whether their Da would come home.

 

All she wants is to have her hand clasped in warm, calloused safety again and know with all the certainty of childhood that her Da will never leave them, never leave her alone.

 

‘Da!’

 

Her fingers have grown ice cold in their grip on the gate; the worn wood digging under her nails when she finally catches sight of him.

 

He is little more than a silhouette, walking with the long, loping stride of a hillwalker that ate up the miles, pausing for a moment to shield his eyes against the weak, white light on the hill. Waving frantically, she manages to prise her aching fingers off the gate and scramble down into the soft bed of tussock grass and heather, feet sinking for a moment before she finds a foothold.

 

‘Da!’

 

Stumbling blindly forward, hands digging into the heather for grip, she struggles up the hill to meet him. The wind is a cutting ache that screams through her ears, but she ignores it, her only thoughts for the figure slowly coming into focus.

 

‘Lass?’

 

She collapses into him, locking her arms over his shoulders, her chest shuddering in heaving gasps for air.

 

He smells of bracken and gorse and strawdust and cold; wet, sharp smells that make her sob harder, balling her aching hands into fists against the wet oilskin of his greatcoat. The light was just reaching the moment of cool, grey beauty before it began to fade, picking out the hairs of his eyebrows arched solid and perfect over the perfect ridges of his brows. His breath is long and deep, shuddering against her chest and it is a moment before he speaks.

 

‘Brianna? What’s troubling ye, _mo chridhe?’_

Large, work worn hands gently draw her back, resting lightly on her shoulders. His voice is the soft, low rumble that she had heard so often in her dreams, his eyes endless pools of love and worry as they search her face, taking in the tumbled explosion of her plaits, the smarting stings of the cuts and scratches from her tormentors’ fingernails.

 

‘I…’ Her throat is knotted past the point of human endurance, the words that she wants to say tumbling erratically through her brain, falling hard against her blocked lips.

 

‘I…’ She stops and swallows, tries again. His gaze is darkening as she tries to speak, creases that she can’t remember seeing before furrowing on his brow.

 

Instead, she lifts her palms to him, wincing as the slap of the wind burrows into the cuts, words that she can’t control suddenly tumbling out into the silence.

 

‘I… I tried to stop them, Da… I… But they…They…’

 

Slowly he takes her hands in his, turning them over so that his fingers can trace the scars, clasping them together to his lips. His face is like glass, turmoil mixed with some memory that she can’t read swirling through suddenly dark eyes that is gone before she can truly register it.

 

‘I can’t go back, Da! I can’t!’ The words are out before she can stop them, a sharp and agonised plea in the thin veil of dreich rain. Overhead, the drifting clouds are beginning to boil into thunderheads; a sharp, cold breeze shaking out the heather and gorse, so it rattled like dried bones, echoing over the moor.  

 

‘Ye willnae have to, _mo nighean ruaidh._ ’

 

His voice is so quiet that she thinks at first that she hasn’t heard him, his hands squeezing her own in a grip that make the bones grind together and she bites her lip to stop herself from crying out in pain.

 

Bright, cat eyes blaze back at her, full of love and sorrow as he releases her hands, drawing her close. She clings back, drinking in the soft, wet scent that envelops him, burying her head in his chest, wanting nothing more than to lose herself in this sense of safety that she has not felt for an eternity.

 

His lungs inflate and contract against her ear, each breath still aching with a ragged brokenness that she wishes that she didn’t have to understand.

 

‘Not if I can help it. Not if...’ He stops and swallows, drawing her out of the embrace to place a soft, chaste kiss deep in her hair, wild and ragged from the wind and rain.

 

She nods slowly, gulping down the tears that still threaten to overwhelm her. A small smile is cracking at her father’s lips, a steady finger reaching out to trace the line of her cheek.

 

‘Braw lass,’ he murmurs, almost to himself, but there is pride in his words and she cannot help but smile back.

 

Together, they make their way slowly down the eastern slope of the hill towards the comforting shelter of the broch and the hurled plaster of Lallybroch nestled down in the valley below. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please feel free to read and review!
> 
> Comments, suggestions, constructive criticisms etc are like chocolate to my brain!
> 
> Much love and enjoy x
> 
> Gaelic translations: 
> 
> ‘Bu chòir dha a bhith glaiste suas = He should be locked up
> 
> ‘Iongantach’ = Idiot/Lunatic
> 
> 'Chaidh a chur chun a 'chlaidheamh lòin’ = He should be in the lunatic asylum.’


	11. They Are My Blessings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A month after the end of the war, Claire and Jamie consider their children’s futures.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to everyone who has taken the time to read and review this emotional overload of a story! Your support and encouragement means the world to me and I can't thank you enough for all of your kind words.

June 1945

 

Slowly, life goes back to normal.

 

Or as normal as it ever was, because Claire cannot quite remember what normality was before the war.

 

Before her husband answered his call of duty and was pulled away from her in a cloud of smoke and rage. It had been a rage that had twisted at her heart, conflictions and contradictions swirling through her brain as she had clung to him at Inverness station, her pleas for him not to go dying in her throat.

 

Before the black cloud of pain and fear and loss descended upon her and her family; clouds that only now are beginning to clear.

 

Sitting in her stillroom surrounded by jars of concoctions, bundles of dried herbs wafting their fragrant perfume from the rafters with her small book of remedies open at a blank, softly yellow page and a half-full jar of honey steeped with lavender and camomile inserted in the dried-up inkwell of the desk, she lets her mind wander to her children.

 

_Faith letting out an exasperated sigh as her hair tumbled from its pins for the hundredth time that morning, cascading out of her VAD’s cap in a mane of copper as she tried to pin it in the soft, dusky light of early dawn. Her eldest daughter turning pleading, sleep filled eyes to her, letting her shoulders slump in relief as she handed over the offending fabric over._

_‘Here m’annsachd, let me.’_

_The weight of her daughter’s hair cascading over her palms as she expertly twisted it up into a knot and slid the pins in place, the curve of the skull that she remembers so clearly peeking out from the linen swaddling blankets that Faith had been wrapped in after her birth, the crown of her head covered in wispy auburn feathers._

_The softness of slanted cat eyes glowing back at her through the mirror, tender in the morning light._

_‘Thank you, Mam.’_

_She had been so small; her milky, butterfly-frail skin decorated so minutely with blue and red veins, looking for all the world like a doll as she rested in the strength of Jamie’s arms for the first time since the doctors had deemed her free from infection._

_Faith had been born at six months gestation, three months prematurity, the result of an infection in Claire’s womb that had called for an emergency caesarean, one that even the most experienced midwives had warned against._

_Their eldest daughter had weighed less than a full bag of sugar and as Claire had come round from the anaesthetic, her world feeling as though it were dissolving beneath her feet into a blur of unimaginable pain and anguish, her lungs stopped working._

Even now, nearly eighteen years later, the memory is a knife to her heart.

 

_It is a memory of Jamie bursting into the room despite being told to wait, white faced and ragged in the harsh light; eyes dark with fear, his battledress thrown on in hasty disarray. Her husband shoving his way past the tightly knotted group of doctors speaking in hushed tones that could only signal a disaster that she could not acknowledge. It is her husband’s hands covering her, shielding her, whispering Gaelic sweet nothings into her sweat soaked curls through trembling lips, his voice shaking with supressed sobs._

_It is the memory of a wail that came from the very depths of her soul, clinging to her husband, cutting through her lungs, screaming through the deathly silent room that had been greeted by a sudden, beautiful wail from their child, red faced and squawling at the prospect of her new existence._

Despite the complications of her birth, Faith has tried to overcome everything the world has thrown at her.

 

Seeing her in the summer uniform of a VAD waving as she wobbled off down the front drive on her bicycle for the morning shift in the cool, pink-grey light of dawn, Claire had felt her heart shred with love for all of her children.

_Break for Faith, poised on the threshold of womanhood, whose stillness drew all eyes to her. Faith who would twirl a finger lightly around a loose lock of hair when she was thinking, blue-grey eyes shining and distant; a small smile hiding in the corners of her lips that reminded her so much of her husband._

 

_For Brianna, who had returned home from school shaking from what she had initially diagnosed as shock, being guided slowly into her seat at the kitchen table by Jamie._

_Brianna who could never remain still. Brianna whose eyes and hands were always moving, who could never remain in the same place for any length of time. Brianna, who had sat at the kitchen table, the ghosts of her words hanging silent in the air as she had let Jamie undress her, slowly peeling away her sodden clothes, wrapping her firmly up in a tartan rug lying on the kitchen sofa._

_She had watched her husband’s large, rough hands gently hold their second daughter together as he worked, murmuring sweet-nothings into her hair. Had caught the deep blue eyes narrowed in a meaningful glance that had her drop to her knees beside him and cup Brianna’s cheek. Had her slowly draw her daughter close as Brianna had choked back a small, black laugh that had been fraught with hopelessness, making her own heart twist and break with love and anguish as Jamie had disappeared to return with a tincture of comfrey and honey and a clean cloth, eyes darkening as he took in the fiery scars slashing across his daughter’s palms._

_‘Mam’s here, little love. Mam’s here.’_

_And Claire remembers Brianna’s spine stiffening against the chair, her body instinctively leaning towards her own, squeezing her eyes shut as Jamie applied the sweetly stinging salve.  Remembers each hitched, sobbing breath as she stroked her daughter’s hair and kept her eyes locked on Jamie._

_For William, with her eyes and his father’s hair. Her son with an expression full of such soft sweetness when he had come in on that Monday evening after spending the afternoon romping over the moor with Kenny Lindsay that all the pain in her heart had unravelled and broken and she had picked him and carried him, squirming and protesting that he was ‘too old for this, Mam!’, to the warmth of the kitchen._

_But she had ignored him, burying her nose into the soft mess of auburn curls, pulling the small, wiry body close for a moment that she had wished could last forever. He is tall for his age, the sharp promise of the Mackenzie cheekbones just visible through the slowly shedding fat of babyhood, falling into deep, Beauchamp eyes._

_Eyes that she vaguely remembers glowing from her father’s face as he had tugged her plaits and kissed her cheek that had made her blush and squirm before he had grabbed his hat and umbrella and disappeared out of the front door._

_‘Be a good girl, Claire and mind your lessons. I’ll be back with your Mother and your little brother as soon as ever I may.’_

_The house that she had come back to after school to find echoing with ghosts of her parent’s laughter and her Uncle Lambert, her father’s eldest brother whom she hardly knew standing in the living room, twisting his hat in his hands. He had told her in words that shook with numbness that her parents’ car had swerved off some hidden ice on the road and crashed into a tree. That her mother had gone into premature labour when her father had lost control and that all three of them- father, mother and infant brother had been killed instantly on impact._

Her heart twists at the memory, a sudden, blinding agony that she has not felt for a long time engulfing her being.

 

Hot, fierce tears prick painfully at the corners of her eyelids and she lets them fall, running down her nose, splattering onto the scarred wood, soaking the soft, worn pages of the notebook. They are great, gulping sobs that seem to come from the very base of herself, twisting in her throat, howling blindly for all she has lost and all she has left to lose.

 

* * *

 

 

‘Sassenach?’

 

She doesn’t hear him at first.

 

Doesn’t hear the soft creak of the stillroom door or the rasp of the second stool being scraped against the floor.

 

Doesn’t feel the warm, strong weight of arms slowly gathering her shivering body close, drawing her to him.

 

‘Hush now, _mo chridhe._ Hush now,’ his voice is soft and low, the voice that he used whenever any of the children were hurting or afraid.

 

She feels herself being drawn onto his lap, her eyes swollen shut by tears; the warm, steady thrum of his heart beating low and soft against her cheek. The bristle of his stubble prickles against her cheek; thick deft fingers carding themselves slowly through her tangled hair.

 

‘I’m here, _mo nighean don’,_ his voice is thick in the quiet, full of pain and longing, desperate to banish all her hurts. ‘You’re safe now, Sassenach. The children are safe. Hush your weesht _m’annsachd_. Hush.’

 

She pulls him closer, pawing at his clothes with thick, nerveless fingers. He responds in kind, lips tenderly finding hers, words that she doesn’t understand flowing from his heart; trembling fingers carding themselves gently through her tangled curls.

 

His voice is soft and low, making the words of quiet endearment his own.

 

She shivers against him, unable to find words adequate enough to answer his questions, her mind still flailing in the black maze of loss that she has found herself flung into. His lips find her skin, kissing her hands, the pit of her neck, her numb mouth, carefully blotting out all her hurts.

 

Slowly, she opens her sore eyes to search out his. They are blazing with love and worry, furrows deep in his forehead, his face half caught in shadow. The hitch in his breath makes her try to struggle out of his arms to make sure that he’s truly there and not some tortured fragment of her imagination, but he holds her fast and gentle with a small shake of his head.

 

_Jamie…_

_It’s nothing Claire, really. I’m here, I’m safe._

 

‘I’m here, _Sorcha._ I’m no’ going anywhere.’

 

A trembling finger traces the line of her cheek. Slowly she finds his lips, tasting the salt in them, but is unsure whether they are his tears or hers.

 

‘Can you… Can you promise me that?’ Her throat is thick with after sobs, her hands balled into fists against the linen of his shirt. He must have been working outside, she can smell the sharp scent of sweat and heat and woodchips mingling with his own dense male musk.

 

He answers her with a kiss, slow and longing against salt-stained lips.

 

* * *

 

‘What can we do about Brianna?’

 

Somehow, they’ve managed to find their way to the floor, the walls of the stillroom littered with long evening shadows, cocooning their shaken souls in soft and dusky darkness.

 

He rubs the bridge of his nose in thought, eyes closed.

 

‘She’s fifteen this October, Jamie. Legally she’ll be allowed to leave school at the end of next term. She can go to Queen Margaret’s College, finish her exams…’

 

Whatever she is going to say next dies in her throat at the look he gives her. It is deep and long and blue, his maimed hand reaching to grip her own. When he speaks, his voice is vehement in his refusal.

 

‘And do what, Sassenach? You ken as well as I do that the world isna kind to lassies who canna support themselves.’

 

‘But that isn’t what I meant at all!’ She bursts out, the words trembling with sudden fury, struggling out of his arms to glare at him.  

 

_He’d had a university education, first at Edinburgh and then Officer’s training at Sandhurst, which was more than she had ever had. Surely, he would understand?_

 

‘You dare to tell me that I don’t know my own daughter, James Fraser? I can tell you that she’s not Faith. She’d not last five minutes in the hospital …’

 

_My own daughter._

 

What she is going to say next dies in her throat at the sight of him. All the colour has drained from his face, the long, fine bones standing stark and white against his cheeks.

 

‘Your daughter.’

 

Each word is spoken with bitter precision, tearing into her heart like bullets. They hang in the air for a moment, air that is thick with love and loss and confusion and pain.

 

 _‘Your_ daughter,’ he repeats slowly, moving slowly away from her, his shadow looming long and black against the wall; blindly reaching for the stool to steady himself, eyes narrowed in incomprehension. Vaguely she notices the chill in the room; his hard, cold stare burning into the depths of her soul.

 

‘Jamie, that’s not what I mean and you know it.’

 

Her voice is ragged in the silence, the words not sounding her own.

 

‘What did ye mean then?’

 

His face is half hidden in shadow, his expression one of careful blankness, eyes fixed on the faded tartan of his kilt. It is all she can do not to cross the three strides between them that feel like three thousand and envelop him in her arms like any one of the children when they were afraid.

 

‘I…’

 

‘I just mean that you hardly know her! You’ve not been here and… And…’

 

Before the words have left her mouth, she knows that they are the wrong ones.

 

‘And whose fault is that, _Sassenach?’_

 

He rounds on her, the word spat out as if she is just that, a stranger and not the wife with whom he has shared the last twenty-five years of marriage with.

 

‘D’ye think it was my intention that the battle for France went the way it did?’

 

His eyes are blazing in the dim light; anger, confusion and hurt burning into her soul.

 

‘D’ye think it was my intention to spend five years as an animal for their pleasure? Tae have everything stripped away from me? Tae not even ha’ my faith tae guide me back to ye and the bairns?’

 

The words come out as a whisper and when he lifts his head to her the skin is stretched tightly over his cheekbones as it was when he was very angry indeed.

 

She shakes her head, taking a step up to meet him. He shies away, the anger radiating off his soul in waves.

 

‘No,’ the word is tremulous in the quiet; a weak, white light that shivers and gutters in the gulf that has yawned its way between them.

 

‘No,’ she says again, more forcefully, willing him to say more so that she doesn’t have to.

 

A beat of silence.

 

She watches him like he would do a frightened foal, her heart twisted in her chest as he wrestles with things that she wishes he did not have to understand.

 

‘D’ye ken what I would dream about at night, when I could find the solace to sleep?’

 

He stands as he speaks, pushing the chair back with a ringing clatter, crossing the room in two strides before dropping to one knee before her.

 

His hands are large and rough, unknown scars digging across his palms as they encase her own.

 

‘I saw the bairns. All of them as they had been when we said farewell at Inverness.’

 

His fingers squeeze down hard on hers, grinding the bones together. She keeps her eyes fixed on his, searching his face, forcefully biting back her tears.

 

_Oh God, Jamie!_

He takes a breath, the action deep and long and ragged, forcing air in and out of his tattered lungs.

 

‘I… I’d walk towards them, calling their names, telling them it was me. That I’d come home. The station would always be dank w’ fog and they… They were little more than shadows and… They couldna hear me. I could hear them though, greetin’…’

 

His voice trails off, eyes lost in memories.

 

‘They couldna see me, _mo nighean don._ I could hear Willie’s voice, ye ken. Willie askin’ Faith why they were there and she… She told him, but he didna understand… _’_

 

A soft shake of his head and she grips his hands harder, feeling the returning stab of tears threatening to engulf her once again.

 

‘She told him that they were waiting for you,’ the words feel icy against her lips.

 

‘Ye ask me why I canna accept the thought of my daughters leaving us so soon?’ The question hangs between them, his face crumpled with emotion, his hold on her hands almost unbearable.

 

She nods, willing him to go on.

 

He swallows, clears his throat in a gruff cough.

 

‘I ken fine that they should go _mo ghraidh_. Go and forge their own paths in the world. Brianna especially. But I canna bear them leaving us wi’out me knowing them. Not yet.’

 

He shakes his head firmly as if to be rid of a painful memory, his eyes sharp and blue in the dying light.

 

‘I…  My Mam died when I was eight and my Da when I was nineteen, _Sassenach.’_

He stops and swallows before continuing, tightening his grip on her hands, his next words low and husky with emotion.

 ‘I ken fine how it hurts. How it rips your soul out and leaves ye hollow, as if the world has set itself against ye and there’s nowhere left to turn. I dinna want that for my bairns. I want to be there for them. All of them. The world willnae be kind to them if I’m not.’

 

She knows all too well about the world not being kind to children who have to tread its treacherous path with no-one to guide them.

 

He pulls her down to him then, bridging the gulf, his salt stained lips pressing a whispered kiss into her curls. His chin rests on the top of her head, his heart beating strong and steady against her ear.

 

‘We’ll find a way,’ she whispers into his chest, smiling a little shakily as she feels his tear-sodden laugh rumble through his throat.

 

‘We always do.’  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please feel free to read and review! Comments, suggestions, constructive criticisms etc are like chocolate to my brain!
> 
> Much love and enjoy x


	12. A Proposal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Faith receives an unexpected proposal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to everyone who has taken the time to read and review this emotional overload of a story! (Hopefully this chapter will lessen the emotional bombardment that I've been serving you all, *she crosses her fingers and hopes*)
> 
> Your support and encouragement means the world to me and I can't thank you enough for all of your kind words.

2nd September 1945

‘Faith! Faith, wait a moment, will ye?’

 

Johnny McPherson’s voice rises and catches on the wind as she slows her bicycle, letting the wind cut and slap against her cheeks, her feet dragging against the tarmac.

 

It has been a long week; a long and tiring week and all she wants to do is go home, change out of her nurse’s uniform, dispense with the groceries that are banging in a string bag against her leg and settle down in the library with a book, a mug of tea and the wireless.

 

Johnny’s face is slapped red with exertion as he skids to a stop beside her, coat and hat flying, a shy smile curling at the corners of his lips as he takes her in. His grey eyes are smudged with bruises, his face pale in the fading light.

 

Since the end of the war he’d taken work as a bank clerk in Inverness, taking the rickety milk train from Broch Mordha’s station every morning at dawn and coming home when the sharp, cool lights of sunset were just falling over the hills.

 

‘Johnny,’ she tries to keep her voice bright but knows instantly from his face that it isn’t working.

 

‘Why, are ye that shocked tae see me Faith?’

 

His face falls as he takes in her expression, the smile crinkling down as long fingers crumple at his hat.

 

In that moment he looks for all the world like a sad puppy and Faith’s heart aches for him.

 

 _She might have loved him once,_ she thinks.

 

_Before the war, had she been older then._

_Had she not been pulled into a whirlwind of work at the hospital, where there was no time to think of such trivial things as love and marriage._

‘No,’ she says, tucking a stray lock of hair back behind her ear.

 

‘No, of course not, Johnny. I just didn’t expect to see you, that’s all.’ A light laugh that doesn’t sound like her at all.

 

‘I managed to get off early,’ he says a little sheepishly, the tips of his ears blushing pink. She nods kindly; he is young and sweet, and she’s known him for most of her life. They had grown up together, learnt to crawl in the Lallybroch kitchen, played at being Robin Hood and Maid Marian in the grounds, tugged each other’s hair and blushed when their parents saw.

 

But love him?

 

She loves him like a brother, the big brother that she never had, no more.

 

_Could she though?_

_Could she love him in that deeper, heart-giving way, giving her soul to him as she has seen burst forth from her parents?_

 

His father’s croft was as much her home as the main house ever could be, with its low ceiling and roaring peat fire, Tam and Eileen MacPherson as much her parents during as the war as her own, but now…

 

‘So I thought we could go to the pictures, ken? Lady on a Train’s showing and the tickets are 2 and 6, so…’ His words come out in a rush, almost as if he doesn’t say them now, they never will be said.

 

‘’Johnny, I… ’ She can’t stop herself glancing at the slowly darkening sky and thinking about the four miles that she still has to travel before she reaches home.

 

‘I can see ye home, if that’s what you’re worried aboot,’ he says quickly.

 

‘Please, Faith. I’ve barely seen ye these past months,’ he sounds so earnest that she knows that it will break his heart entirely if she refuses him.

 

‘Alright then,’ she says, feeling her heart lift at the sight of his face splitting into a grin at her words.

 

* * *

 

The cinema is a dilapidated piece of crumbling neo-Gothic architecture situated in a side street just off the main square with its war memorial that she passes every day on the way to work, a lump catching in her throat.

 

Its hurled, white plaster is crumbling around the edges, the electricity cracked and erratic, the hems of the red velvet curtains frayed at the edges. She remembers coming here during the war with Brianna and Willie in a desperate moment to escape the cavernous, empty hole that Lallybroch had been during the worst days of 1940, crowding in three seats together, holding each other’s hands, skin tingling, whispering, pulling close when the wine of the air-raid siren ripped through the auditorium.

 

It is hot and cramped with the push of too many bodies, a melee of bank clerks, recently demobbed soldiers tall and self-conscious in their civilian clothes, their sweethearts soft and blushing in the dim, flickering light as they were ushered to their seats. There are a few grey uniforms amid the sea of greens and reds and blues and browns and she thinks she sees one of her stricter ward sisters and has to resist the urge to duck behind Johnny in order not to be seen.

 

Johnny’s hand is nervous against her back and on instinct, she turns to smile at him, seeing to her surprise a sheen of sweat prickling at the top of his upper lip, mingling with the straggling stubble of his moustache. His eyes seem very big in the dim light, the heat of his fingers lingering close enough to touch.

 

Behind their heads, she can hear the click and whirr of the film reel cranking audibly into life but ignores it. Johnny’s fingers edge closer, the brush of skin on skin, his pulse hot and fast against her own.

 

‘May I?’ The question is a hitched whisper in the silence, but still loud enough for a woman in a brown felt hat festooned with an emerald parrot feather to glare at them both and put a pudgy finger to her lips.

 

She nods once before realising that he can’t see her.

 

‘Yes,’ the word is a breath against her lips as his grip tightens, something small and hard slipping into her palm; nimble, calloused fingers pulling her fingers closed around it, the hairs of his moustache tickling slightly as his lips brush her knuckles.

 

‘Open it later.’

 

* * *

 

 

She hardly takes in the film.

 

All she can feel is Johnny’s warm weight beside her, the grip of his hand on hers, the weight of the mystery package hard in her hands, the ghost of his lips lingering against her skin.

 

It is only when they are outside again, shivering in the end of summer chill despite the fact that she’s wrapped up in her dark blue nurses’ cape, her fingers gripping the handles of her bicycle so hard it hurts, do they talk.

 

‘Well?’ His eyes are glowing in the fading light, twin beacons amid the scrum of cinema-goers pouring back into reality. ‘Open it, will ye?’

 

She can feel the expectation radiating off him in waves.

 

His excitement makes her nervous, even more when his hands reach over to bridge the gap between them, clasping her own.

 

Her own fingers feel numb and they fumble slightly against the ribbon, which she now sees is a soft, bright blue.

 

‘Tae match your eyes,’ he seems abashed, but her heart is touched and she smiles at him, wordlessly conveying her thanks, trying not think about how Brianna will mimic that line for days once she hears, drawing out Johnny’s torment with a roll of her eyes.

 

He kneels to her then, arms gently reaching out to take the box from her before she drops it, deft fingers neatly undoing the knot.

 

She stares at him, all the words that she wants to say caught in a lump at the pit of her throat.

 

The ring glitters softly against the black velvet cushion; a simple, diamond band glowing in the dim light.

 

His eyes glow back into hers, his free hand reaching to grip her own, so that the bicycle wobbles dangerously, his fingers trembling over hers. The words that she knows from years of thumbing her way through her mother’s romantic novels will come next hang in the silence between them, words that she can’t ignore but somehow, selfishly perhaps, wishes that she could.

 

_Could she marry him?_

_Can she see herself spending the rest of her life eeking out a living on the edge of the estate where she has grown up, in the two bedroom croft that Johnny would no doubt inherit from his father, the wife of a lowly bank clerk?_

 

‘Faith Janet Fraser, will ye do me the honour of becoming my wife?’

 

The words hang suspended for a moment before crashing to the pavement, never to be uttered again.

 

His grip on her hands tightens, squeezing so that the bones grind together.

 

‘I… I…’

 

Her inner turmoil must have shown on her face, because he draws her close, his body reeking of that soft, male musk that she has become so accustomed to smelling in the wards, but never this close.

 

‘Ye dinna have to answer me now,’ he says quietly; a small, shy smile trembling at the corner of his mouth. ‘And we’ll ha’ to go to your Da, in any case, to ask for his permission an’ a blessing.’ He shudders slightly as he says it and she bites back a laugh at the image of Johnny MacPherson trembling before James Fraser in the dim light of the study.

 

‘Aye’, she says quietly, lifting her eyes to him, inwardly praying that her doubts are not as clear to read as she fears. ‘We’ll do that.’

 

* * *

 

It’s late into the night by the time Johnny sees her home.

 

The lamps are burning low and she can just make out one winking glow in her father’s study; Jamie Fraser’s long shadow hunched over his desk, pouring over some papers that from this distance she can’t decipher.

 

The ring feels heavy on her finger, her hands trembling slightly within Johnny’s.

 

‘Are ye feeling alright, Faith? You’re trembling,’ Johnny’s arm wraps itself around her shoulder, shrugging off his coat.

 

‘Aye,’ she whispers, unable to take her eyes off the figure of her father, trying not to think about his reaction to her news, but utterly unable to stop.

 

‘It’ll be all right, I promise ye.’

 

She tries to smile back at him, the gesture feeling hard and forced.

 

 _Ye dinna have to answer me now,_ he’d said, _but we’ll need to get the banns read soon and the Kirk organised and…_

She’d hardly heard him as he chattered onwards, pushing her bicycle down the long, white lane that snaked over the moor towards Lallybroch, twisting the ring over her finger; its’ firm, hard weight alien against her skin.

 

Above their heads, the stars burn bright and clear against the dark velvet sky.

 

 _Help me,_ she thinks, her prayer a silent, desperate cry, lost in their great abyss.

 

_Help me love him properly, like I know I should._

_I dinna ken if this is what ye want for me. What I want for myself and…_

 

_Please just let me love him._

_Let me know that I’m doing the right thing._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please feel free to read and review!
> 
> Comments, suggestions, constructive criticisms etc are like chocolate to my brain!
> 
> Much love and enjoy x


	13. Lost and Found

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Torn between the twin pillars of love and family, Faith discusses Johnny's proposal with her Father

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to everyone who has taken the time to read and review this! Your love and support for this story and this AU mean the absolute world to me and I can't thank any of you enough for taking the time to interact with my writing.

The walk to her Father’s study is one that Faith has done many times. Has done in times in times of joy and times of trial but never with her heart aching as heavily it does now, Johnny’s engagement ring weighing heavily on her finger.

 

The familiar back passage leading off the kitchen with its dark, wood panels and inked portraits of her Fraser ancestors, the china cabinet which housed Ellen Mackenzie’s china collection glitter out at her through the long shadows of the night.

 

Her grandmother’s pastoral idyll of delicately Delft painted tiles and blue and white shepherdesses, boys in wide brimmed hats, the straw delicately picked out in minute strokes cradling a lamb in one arm twinkle back at her as she moves slowly, each step seeming to last a lifetime. The portraits of her grandparents, of Aunt Jenny done when she was about her own age, dark Fraser hair framing blazing Mackenzie eyes, one hand resting lightly on the shaggy head of one of Bran’s predecessors, of Uncle William, who had died when her Father was eight, shine down at her, but she finds that she can’t look at them.

 

She had come here during the worst moments of the war and stood, numb and trembling amid the rumble of the storm clouds, trying to find something of herself in these time capsules into another world.

 

Had come and traced the lines of the joint portrait of her Father and her uncle done when Jamie was eight and Willie was eleven, the year that he had succumbed to smallpox. Tried to imagine the man that the boy in the portrait would have been like had he survived. Had asked for the spirit of her long-dead uncle, which she was sure still haunted Lallybroch’s corridors, to watch over her Father, wherever he was, and bring him home.

 

From her father’s study, she can hear the strains of _Nessun Dorma_ swelling into its’ gloriously tragic conclusion from the gramophone. Hear the scuff of boots on the bare wooden floorboards, the scrape of a chair being pulled back, a sudden bark of frustration cutting through the throbbing stillness that makes her heart clench in her chest.  

 

They were the only two awake then.

 

Two lost souls meeting in the quiet of the night, when the rest of the world was safely tucked up in sleep.

 

Him trapped in the vice like grip of past memories that refused to let him go and she afraid of a future that she did not know the outcome of.

 

The ring pulls against her knuckle as she twists it, metal throbbing against skin and bone.

 

It would be easy enough to pull it off, to run upstairs and hide it away in one of the drawers in her bureau and pretend that it had never happened. However, as she stands in the quiet darkness, she knows that that would be impossible.

 

It would be impossible because the heat of Johnny’s kiss still lingers on her cheek, the memories of the heat, the press of bodies crammed too tightly together, the slick of sweat catching at the hairs of his upper lip, the dry ache that still rattles in her throat at his earnestly questioning eyes are still too raw for her to forget.

 

‘ _A Dhia!’_

 

Her father’s voice cuts through her reverie, the words choked with frustration, a splintering crash echoing across the floor.

 

Taking her cue, she slowly pushes the heavy door open.

 

* * *

 

 

‘Da?’

 

He doesn’t see her at first.

 

He is a shadow standing in the last fragments of guttering light from his oil lamp, tall frame bent low over the desk.

 

A gleaming pile of shattered glass glitters in a puddle of moonlight against the dark floorboards, jagged edges gleaming in the silver light. A sweet, fruity aroma of port and brandy wafts up from the puddle of glass; the amber liquid seeping into the bare wooden floorboards.

 

His face is caught in silhouette as she moves to him, the sharp lines and bones stark in the soft light.

 

‘Da?’

 

His breathing is caught and ragged in the quiet, hitching back what could be a sob. Slowly, he straightens, arms travelling to his sides, balled hands slowly relaxing, the creak of each finger making her heart ache.

 

‘Claire?’

 

Her mother’s name is a breath of a question in the silence, hinged with a hope that she wishes she could give him.

 

‘No, Da, it’s no’ Claire. It’s me, it’s Faith.’

 

Her voice is soft in the quiet; hot, fierce tears that she doesn’t want to shed pricking too easily at the corners of her eyes at the sight of him, bent over the desk with the weight of the world on his shoulders.

 

‘Faith’, she hears rather than sees the tension leave him, the memories fleeing back to the shadows of his psyche, the coiled springs of his muscles easing free in the breath it takes to say her name.

 

‘What is it _mo chuisle?’_

 

He closes the gap between them with ease, drawing her into an embrace that she hasn’t realised she’s missed until it happens.

 

His heart beats slow and steady against her ear, the warmth and strength of him that she has yearned for so long flooding through her whole being, the words that she knows that she must say flooding in a tide of emotion against her lips.

 

_Oh Da, I… I…_

Slowly, he puts her away from him, his palms flat and comforting on her shoulders. In the faint glow of the oil lamp at his desk, she can just make out the exhausted blue-black smudges caressing his lower lids, the sharp pull of his skin over the high Mackenzie cheekbones inherited by all his children.

 

Carefully, he reaches up to cup her cheek, his thumb skimming over her cheek to blot away tears that she can’t remember shedding.

 

‘Bonny lass’, his voice is soft with unasked questions as he slowly guides her like a frightened foal around the pile of glittering glass to the worn, green velvet chair behind his desk, his mouth caught in the soft Gaelic endearments that she remembers so well from her childhood and had feared she would never hear again.

 

‘ _Sweet lass ye were, m’eudail. Sweet lass. Da’s here, mo chiride. It’s all right.’_

 

She sinks into it gratefully, her fingers instinctively tugging at the ring; clamping and unclamping themselves around her most painful of secrets.

 

‘What is it, then?’

 

She barely hears him at first.

 

Only registers the question when the flare of the oil lamp at the desk hisses and splutters into life, his face bathed in a soft, yellow glow.

 

Her hands are twisted together in her lap, Johnny’s ring pressed into the centre of her palm.

 

Slowly she relaxes them, a heavy, aching breath breaking from her lungs.

 

He nods in the quiet, not taking his eyes off her.

 

‘Johnny… Johnny McPherson, ye ken?’ Her voice is stuck, the words that she wants to say blockaded at the back of her throat.

 

He nods, recognition flooding into his face.

 

‘He… Weel… He asked me to… To…’

 

She bites her lip at that until she tastes blood, unable to articulate any further.

 

‘Tae do what, _mo nighean ruaidh_?’

 

Still the same quiet, understanding voice, willing her on.

 

‘Oh Da!’ On impulse, she flings out her hands to him, the ring dancing across the bare, polished wood; the sapphire glowing as it catches the flickering light.

 

‘I dinna know if I can do it! If I… If I want tae do it!’

 

The words burn against her mouth, all the pain and confusion that has been building in her heart ever since Johnny knelt to her in the soft summer heat bursting out of her like a broken dam.

 

‘Marriage? He meant it?’

 

Her father’s voice is very quiet when he speaks.

 

She nods mutely, her courage completely spent.

 

‘I didna want him to,’ she says after a beat of silence that feels like it lasts a lifetime, remembering the soft brush of Johnny’s fingers over her own, the tingle of his lips on hers, the hard weight of the box slipping through the dark closeness of the cinema, the look of earnest, desperate adoration that had burnt through his eyes.

 

‘But I… I…’

 

‘I think so, but I… I’ve kent him like a brother for the whole of my life and I canna… I wouldn’t… I… I wouldn’t want…’

 

The words tumble from her lips without any thought into what she’s saying; her accent turning more and more like her mothers with its’ crisp home counties twang as it does when she’s agitated.

 

A small smile is playing at his lips; blue eyes twinkling.  

 

‘I had forgotten ye could do that, _mo leannan,’_ the words are soft with sadness, the weight of their lost years heavy in every syllable.

 

‘Do what?’ She sniffs heavily, dragging her sleeve across her aching eyes.

 

‘Sound so much like yer Ma when she’s finished scoldin’ me. Here _a chuisle,_ dry your tears,’ silently he hands her his handkerchief; large, safe fingers encasing her.

 

The square of faded cloth holds his scent; a dense musk caught with fire and alcohol and the faint, thick, wet smells of the moor.

 

‘D’ ye want me to speak wi’ the lad?’

 

His face is mere inches from hers now, love and worry evident in every crease.

 

She holds his gaze, choking back the lump in her throat.

 

‘No,’ the word feels heavy in the silence, stammering through her sobs.

 

‘No… Yes… I… I don’t... I just… I want it to be… To be…’

 

Her voice catches at the last, stumbling to a tear-stained stop. The words that she wants to say, knows that she needs to say tumble against her mouth, the weight of them suddenly feeling far too heavy for her to bear.

 

_To be like you and Mam._

_To give my heart an’ soul to him and ken that I’m doing the right thing._

‘Oh lass,’ his hands squeeze hers tighter, his eyes wide with love and understanding.

 

‘You’re seventeen, _mo nighean ruaidh._ You dinna need to be making these choices yet. Your Mam and I…’ He stops and swallows and she thinks, or perhaps imagines that she can see something akin to pain flicker across his face. Pain for the grandchildren not yet born, for the lives not yet lived.

 

‘Your Mam and I want the best for you, Faith,’ his fingers move slowly over her own, the twin callouses rubbing over rough skin.

 

‘And we ken that you’re growing up. But I canna think of ye marrying just yet. Not until you’re sure that ye can be happy wi’ the man ye love. I couldna be able to bear it if ye weren’t. Ye understand?’

 

She nods slowly, a warmth that could be relief flooding through her heart. His eyes are shining in the faded light; the blue look that she remembers so well from her childhood glittering down his long, straight nose, a small smile flickering at his mouth.

 

‘We’ll talk in the morning, aye? See what your Mam says.’

 

She finds herself nodding again and then she is in his arms, drinking in the safety that has been lost to her for far too long.

 

‘Thank you Da,’ she hears herself whisper against the coarse linen of his shirt, standing up on tip-toe to kiss him, her lips wet with salt and love. His stubble rasps against them, the skin cool and firm beneath her touch. ‘Thank you.’

 

She doesn’t have to tell him how much she means it.

 

 _‘_ Oh _m’annsachd’,_ she hears him murmur reverently. ‘Ye do break my heart wi’ loving you.’

 

* * *

 

Later that night

 

‘Marriage? Did he really mean it?’

 

Brianna’s voice is suddenly sharp with questions as she rolls over to face her sister, the bedframe creaking a little under their shared weight.

 

_It had been well into the wee hours when Faith had finally dragged herself from her father’s study, up the stairs, down the passageway, past her parents’ bedroom and into her own bedroom, the ghost of Jamie’s kiss pressed against her forehead._

_And then, standing in the soft, dark light in her white linen nightdress, in a room that held so many ghosts, she had realised that she did not want to spend tonight of all nights alone._

 

‘ _Oidhche mhath, Faith. Sweet dreams, a nighean.’_

_‘And you,_ _Da. Oidhche mhath.’_

‘Aye, he did,’ she rolls over, holding Brianna’s gaze. Her sister’s eyes glow out of a pale face framed by a fierce tangle of auburn curls.

 

Tries not to think about Johnny’s sincere, earnest gaze, or the way that his long fingers had taken the package from her, carefully undoing the ribbon to reveal the glittering cargo secure in its cushion of black velvet. The ring that now was hidden in the depths of her jewellery box that her parents had given her for her confirmation; glittering, taunting her youth and indecision.

 

‘ _Tae match your eyes’,_ Johnny had said, the tips of his ears blushing a furious pink.

 

‘And you? What did you say?’ Brianna’s question brings her back to the present like a quick, painful twist to the wrist.

 

Her sister’s eyes are shining, hanging onto her every word, a grin catching at the corners of her lips.

 

‘Bree! I can’t tell you that!’ Bunching up her pillow, she hurls it at the younger girl who squeals, scrambling away to bury herself in the safer side of the bed.

 

‘Aye, ye can!’ Brianna’s head pops up at the other side of the bed, her hair a tangled halo, completely caught out of its’ plait as she crawls back towards Faith, burying herself close so that her head rests on her shoulder.

 

One hand reaches out to tangle itself in Faith’s hair and she sighs, secure in the loving weight of her sister.

 

From the window, a shaft of silver moonlight dances across the bed, catching their joined bodies in a dance of light and shadow.

 

‘Da told me I could wait, if I wanted,’ Faith says at last, feeling rather than seeing Brianna’s nod, the bounce of her sister’s chin in the pit of her shoulder blades.

 

‘That I dinna have to make a decision yet. That him and Ma will respect whatever I do, as long as I feel that it is the right thing.’ As she says them, it feels as if the words have released a great, invisible weight off her heart, her lungs gasping out in relief.

 

‘Aye? That’s good,’ Brianna’s fingers carefully reach up to tuck back a stray curl behind her ear; a lingered, whispered kiss pressed lightly against unseen skin.

 

‘Because I dinna want ye to go, just yet,’ her sister’s voice is sharp and fierce in the quiet, her arms tightening their grip around her. For a moment, Faith hears the ghost of the lost and lonely girl that Brianna had been during the worst years of the war; unwilling to share the troubles that weighed heavily on her heart.

 

 ‘There’s far too much for ye to do here.’

 

‘Aye? And what that might be?’ Squirming round to face her, Faith takes Brianna into her arms, fingers worn with long practice expertly finding the soft spot just below her ribcage that makes her squeal and kick wildly.

 

‘Get out if ye’re going tae tickle me, Faith Fraser!’

 

‘No chance, your bed’s much warmer than mine!’

 

Together, they tumble back into the bed, arms locked around each other, their laughter echoing through the silently slumbering house.

 

In the Laird’s room, Jamie Fraser hears the echo, feels the warmth of Claire’s body, sweet and hot and supple with their latest love making beside him and turns over, smiling in his sleep.

  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please feel free to read and review!
> 
> Comments, suggestions, constructive criticisms etc are like chocolate to my brain!
> 
> Much love and enjoy x
> 
> Oidhche mhath = goodnight
> 
> M'eudail = my darling/my dear


	14. For the Love of a Child

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Striving to come out of the grips of a nightmare, Jamie Fraser struggles with the thought of his eldest daughter leaving the safety of Lallybroch

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to everyone who has taken the time to read and review this! Your feedback and support mean the absolute world to me!

3rd September 1945 

 

_He’s standing in the knave of Broch Mordha’s Catholic kirk, watching a wedding and a bride with a mane of auburn curls standing at an altar that is bathed in glorious summer sunlight._

_The bride’s gown is antique, ivory silk, sewn all over with the tiniest of seed pearls that glitter and dance as they catch the light._

_At the nape of her neck, he can just make out the glimmer of fresh water pearls clasped at her throat, the gleam of her eyes as she turns to beam at him, her mouth caught in a smile of endless love._

_Faith._

_His eldest daughter clasping a bouquet of harebells and white roses from her grandmother’s rose briar, her face alight with happiness._

_He can still feel the ghost of her fingers clutching at his arm as they had made their way through the church and he had presented her to the care of the groom._

_‘God go with ye, mo chuisle.’_

_The words whispered in a breath against her ear as she beams up at him, eyes shining with all the promise of what is yet to come._

_‘And you, Da.’_

_And he’s stepping back to the Fraser family pew, his arms aching, wanting nothing more than to take her in them once more and protect her from all her hurts as he had done when she was a bairn._

_His eyes are burning as he sees Father Cameron; body stooped like a thorn ash bent double by the brunt of too many winter storms, smile benignly at the happy couple from the pulpit. The dark eyes that he remembers so well glowing down at him and Claire at his own wedding still glow with light, though the face that holds them is weathered now, as brown and wrinkled as an apple left too long in the cold._

_‘Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today…’_

_Each of the words are a dagger to his heart, their blades twisting deep and agonising into his soul._

_Beside him he can feel Claire press close, her fingers slipping into his; clutching, squeezing, her heart crying words that could not be said aloud._

_‘It will be all right. I promise you Jamie. She’ll be all right.’_

_‘Will she?’ His heart replies to hers in kind; a desperate, aching question, broken by the weight of loss and love._

_The amber eyes that he cherishes above all things glow back at him, shining with unshed tears as Claire nods silently._

_‘She will.’_

_But whatever she is going to say next is cut short by the short, flat crack of a pistol being fired somewhere in the congregation_

_Faith is staggering back; turning, slipping, clutching desperately at her betrothed’s arm, something hot and red and ghastly blooming across the brilliant ivory of her bodice._

_Her eyes are wide in sudden shock, face crumpling as the pain surges through her, mouth twisted in agony as Jamie flings himself out of the pew and charges up the aisle with Claire, Brianna and William behind him, his daughter’s name ripped in a blood-soaked haze from his throat._

_‘Faith!’_

_She’s clinging to life when they finally reach her, shoving their way through a congregation that could be made up of ghosts for all they care. They are faces that they know and love and trust that are now blurred together into one indistinguishable haze, but it doesn’t matter._

_Nothing matters._

_Nothing matters at all except for the weight of Jamie’s daughter’s hand weakly clasped in his; her eyes distant and hazy, burning with tears as she struggles to breathe; each word a bloody splatter against his heart._

_‘Can ye… Can ye make it stop, Da?’_

_No, lass. No, dinna go. Please. It’s no’ your time. Please._

_The weight of her hair curls desperately between numb fingers as he supports her head; burning liquid blooming over the back of his hand, his heart numb and screaming at all once because try as he might, he cannot make it stop._

_His daughter’s body arched in agony against his arms; a tormented, animalistic cry that he would gladly, thankfully endure for her sake, ripping its way through icy lips._

_‘I’m here, m’annsachd. I’m here.’ Her skin is icy to touch as he brushes an escaped curl from her eyes, the light and life that he loves so well ebbing faster than he had thought possible, the words choked and broken and full of a desperate rage that he knows is hopeless._

_Desperately, he pulls her closer; the pale and lovely face dancing distortedly through his shattered vision, words of comfort that he doesn’t understand spilling brokenly into the silence._

_Stay wi’ me, Faith. Please. Da’s here, mo chuisle. I… I willnae leave ye. I’m here, lass. I’m here…_

_He has seen death more times than he can care to imagine, has held soldiers who were little more than boys crying out their last breaths in his arms, but never had he imagined that it would be his daughter that he would be holding, clinging to her last breath with every ounce of strength that he possesses._

_Dinna go, mo cholom geal._

_Not yet._

_For God’s sake, not yet._

* * *

 

 

Hands on his shoulders.

 

Each breath grates against his lungs; fast and wet and ragged, choked with bloody sobs.

 

‘Come back. Come back love, It’s just a dream.’

 

The reek of fear-sweat chokes him, his skin hot and wet and tingling with apprehension, muscles coiled and hard and shaking, hands balled into fists, eyes squeezed firmly closed.

 

_It’s just a dream._

A sudden gasping cry that makes no sense bursts from his lips, his body curling desperately into hers before the image shifts and it’s not Claire he’s holding but Faith. Faith in his mother’s wedding dress, blood blooming down the long, white arch of her throat. It’s not Claire’s crown of dark curls that run like liquid gold through his fingers, but those of his eldest daughter and….

 

The sheets are caught around him as he struggles to sit, pushing them away in a rip of linen. Linen that had been stained shockingly scarlet when his mother had died in this room giving birth to a premature boy who had lived long enough to be christened Robert Brian Gordon Mackenzie Fraser before breathing his last a in a wisp of blue smoke, Ellen Mackenzie Fraser’s lifeblood seeping deep into the grains of the bare floorboards.

 

‘Jamie, please. Talk to me.’

 

A hand on his shoulder pulling him close, but he shrugs it off, blind to her.

 

Blind to everything but the need to get away, the need to be away from the bed.

 

The bed where his children had been conceived, where both his parents died, where the hands of life and death are so closely woven it is hard to know where one began and the other ended.

 

‘Jamie!’

 

Claire’s voice is a strangled cry as he stumbles to the windowsill, the icy floor sending tremors up his feet, making his knees knock and teeth rattle.

 

He collapses against the windowsill, legs buckling under him, fingers digging hard into the splintered wood. Flakes of paint catch under his nails, an aching breath shaking through his tattered lungs.

 

The window is ajar; a soft, cold breeze breaking against the heat of sleep filled skin.

 

Outside the sky is a soft, velveteen black, stabbed through with tiny fragments of silver light. The garden is a carpet of stillness, only the mournful cry of a tawny owl way out on the moor disturbing the silence, the whistle of the wind through the branches of the ash tree that sheltered the witch’s cauldron; an ancient stone pot covered with moss and lichen that had been used by the children in their games of make believe when they were small; creaking through the night.

 

_How he has longed for such stillness!_

_How many hours had he spent in the huts or else crammed in the cattle trucks on the road to Bavaria surrounded by the unending pain of his fellow men?_

His grip on the splintered wood tightens at the memory of one such night, holding the head of a young recruit who couldn’t have been much older than Faith, gasping out his last breath in a desperate, throaty rattle.

 

_Such a waste!_

_Such a…_

‘Jamie?’

 

His hands have balled themselves into fists, the stiff fingers of his right hand tight and aching and he relaxes them slowly, a sobbing breath aching through his lips.

 

‘What is it?’

 

She is fixed in a shadow of silver light, looking as lovely and vulnerable as a selkie without its’ sealskin, her hair a dark crown of curls spilling about her face, whisky eyes huge and haunted in the shadows.

 

The words are caught and broken, and he can feel his heart thudding somewhere in his throat at the sound of them.

 

‘Jamie, please. Talk to me. Tell me. It’ll be easier then.’ Slowly, she takes a step towards him arms open, eyes wide and pleading.

 

_And oh, how he wants to!_

 

How he wants to lay his heart bare for her and yet-

 

And yet as he stands there he can see something akin to fear flicker across the whisky depths. Catches a glimpse of his own reflection; a gaunt, hunted beast who cannot resign itself to its’ fate in those eyes that he loves so well and finds himself repulsed.

 

‘Claire.’

 

Her name is an ache of sorrow on his lips as he turns fully from the window, blinking back the stabbing pinpricks of tears that tear at his eyes, desperately trying to rid himself of the vision of Faith’s body lying cold and heavy in his arms.

 

‘God, Claire!’

 

He stops and swallows thickly, trying to master himself.

 

_It was only a dream._

_Only…_

She comes to him slowly, gently taking him in her arms as if he were one of the children in the throes of a night terror and not her husband of twenty-five years.

 

‘It’s all right my love,’ he hears her whisper, the words lost as she reaches to cup his cheek.

 

‘Is it?’ Slowly he reaches to cover her hand, feeling the heat of her skin radiate through his own, the weight of her wedding ring pressing against his palm.

 

* * *

 

 

‘Where were you?’

 

_Home._

_Abbeville._

_Dunkirk._

_Bavaria._

_Le Havre._

_Nowhere._

 

Somehow, they’ve made it to the kitchen and she has pushed a mug of cocoa between his numb palms, the heat of the drink slowly bringing something human back into him. The night is still densely black, the sounds of the earth muffled by the dark.

 

She has pulled her chair next to his, one hand reached across the scrubbed oak table, clutching his own lightly.

 

‘I…’ He stops and swallows, tries again.

 

Her grip on his hand tightens, a sudden twinge of pain rippling through his stiff fingers.

 

‘I was at the Catholic kirk in Broch Mordha, ye ken?’

 

The words are slow and tentative, and she nods.

 

‘I… It was Faith’s wedding and…’

 

He stops, fixing his gaze on their joined hands, the memories of his dream suddenly too painful to put into coherent words.

 

_Faith beaming at him, radiant in the soft September sun._

_The short, flat cut of a pistol being fired, scarlet blood blooming over ivory silk._

_A desperate, broken plea tearing at his heart_

_‘Can ye… Can ye make it stop, Da?’_

‘You don’t have to go there, love,’ the words break through the sudden stillness, gently pulling him into the present. Her eyes are blazing with unshed tears, her fingers slowly working over his, lightly pressing into the weathered skin.

 

‘Aye’, he hears himself whisper in reply, trying a smile which he does not feel.

 

From somewhere in the back passage, he can hear Bran’s snuffling, twitching snores, no doubt flushing out grouse in his sleep.

 

Above their heads, the pipes creak and whir; the clanking mingled with the soft thud of bare feet padding across the first-floor landing. The thud of a door opening, the click of it being pulled to.

 

_God, to lose any of them!_

_But he knows that they must go._

_They must go as children have done so for time immemorial, leaving their childhood safety and taking the first, uncertain steps into a brave new world of adulthood._

_He just wishes it wasn’t Faith._

_Wishes that it didn’t have to be so soon._

 

‘Are ye as scared as I am, _Sassenach_?’

 

She nods, the index finger of her free hand catching at a loose curl, twisting it firmly down over her cheek.

 

‘I keep… I keep seeing her as she was in the hospital,’ her words are barely a whisper.

 

‘Aye’, he nods, the word catching at a smile.

 

‘She was such a tiny thing when they finally let me hold her,’ her smile is a tremulous flicker against her lips

 

‘She was so small, but she fought, Jamie. Even when the doctors thought that they’d lose her…’

 

He nods, remembering.

 

Remembering the achingly long period of sleeplessness where night and day had had no meaning after the terror of the birth at the army hospital at the RMA where he’d been stationed before receiving orders for a permanent posting in Inverness.

 

Remembering the agonising scream that had torn at his very foundations. A scream that had seemed to come from the very depths of Claire’s being as he had forced himself into the room, only to see the doctors whisking the bundle of new life away; their low murmurs of which he knew nothing striking through his heart like bullets, each one more painful than the last. Remembers Claire’s keening cry rising into a shrill scream of terror as the body of their child was borne away; silent, blue and lifeless.

 

  Remembers pacing the corridors under the flickering glow of the ancient paraffin hurricane lamps in crumpled battledress, hands clasped firmly behind his back to stem his trembling fingers, the ache of exhaustion pulling at eyes that he dared not close lest he miss it.

 

And then…

 

And then the sudden, joyful moment when a kindly faced nurse with glass green eyes and dimples peeping at her cheeks had pushed the door open, a shaft of soft May sunlight spilling out onto the hospital bed.

 

_‘You can go in now, sir. Go and meet your daughter.’_

* * *

 

 

‘Do you think she’s ready?’

 

Claire’s question pulls him back into the present with a shock.

 

Outside the kitchen window, the sky is beginning to lighten, incremental flecks of pink and grey stabbing through the darkness, the grandfather clock in the hall chiming in the hour.

 

Her eyes are wide and shining, her mug of cocoa pushed away, undrunk.

 

He can only shake his head, dragging the heel of his hand across his face, blinking hard.

 

‘I dinna ken, _Sassenach._ And I dinna ken about Johnny.’

 

She nods, something that he can’t place flickering across her face.

 

‘They’ve grown up together, but as much as I hate it, I want something more for her. Something that’s beyond Kilmaurs Farm and…’

 

‘Aye,’ he tries a smile. Tries to stem the distant memories of his nightmare that are rising in expectant horror from the depths of his heart.

 

‘Aye, I ken what ye mean. Johnny’s a braw lad and all, but…’

 

_But what?_

_Something._

_Something that he can’t place._

_He has known Tam and Eileen McPherson since he first took up the lairdship of Lallybroch at the age of twenty-one. Remembers being invited over to a mug of tea, black buns and soft sponge cake glistening with strawberry jam and fresh cream when he had come home from university after his father’s death to start the formidable job of putting the estate affairs in order with Jenny and Ian’s help, stooping low in the doorway of their croft._

_Remembers the way that Tam had wrung his hand, weathered face beaming with smiles, ushering him to the best chair by the fire; the very picture of Highland hospitality that he had missed so keenly at Edinburgh._

_‘Your parents were great friends to us Jamie, lad. Your Da especially.’_

_And he had ducked his head politely and sipped his tea, scalding on his tongue, trying to hide the sudden smarts of emotion catching at his eyes at the mention of Brian Fraser, trying and failing to put his finger on what, apart from the obvious, was making him feel so uncomfortable about Tam._

_He was a good tenant, there was no denying it, he paid his rent and kept the croft in good enough order from what he had seen of the scrubbed table, the rag rug by the hearth, the jug of dog violets on the windowsill, the framed sampler tacked up above the dresser._

 

‘Not who you were expecting for your eldest daughter?’ Claire’s voice has taken on a lightly teasing tone and he’s glad of it.

 

‘No,’ he says at last.

 

‘But it’s no’ my choice to make, _mo nighean don.’_

She nods, pressing his hand lightly in her own.

 

‘I think…’

 

Her voice is soft, and she bites her lip as she pauses, trying to find the right words.

 

‘I think that you should go to him. Don’t take Faith, it’ll just upset her, but let her know that you’re going and explain your position. He can’t expect anything more than that from us at this point.’

 

‘As I recall,’ he replies with equal care, ‘there was little negotiation on our marriage.’

 

She smiles coyly at him from under her lashes, a distinct blush rising through her cheeks.

 

‘That’s probably because Uncle Lamb was overjoyed at my getting married to really care who I was marrying.’

 

There is a laugh in her voice and he grins at her, remembering the way that she had shone in the entrance to Broch Mordha’s kirk on that crisp May morning, her fingers light and steady on Lambert Beauchamp’s arm. She had been carrying a posy of ivory roses picked from Ellen Mackenzie’s rose briar, her hair a mane of dusky darkness falling loose from the Fraser tiara.

 

She had been decked out in his mother’s wedding finery that Jenny had found in one of the attics and he remembers the swell of pride that had burst in his throat at the sight of her, whisky coloured eyes blazing with hope as she smiled at him shyly from under the gossamer thin lace of her veil. Remembers Ian puffed up with pride beside him in his RAF reserves uniform, nudging him firmly in the ribs to stand up straight and look to the altar as the wedding march had begun to play.

 

‘ _She’s a braw lass, mo chariad. Ye’ve done well wee one.’_

 

‘Aye. Well then. But you’re no’ Faith and she’s no’ you, as you kindly reminded me the other day.’ He pauses, trying to forget the sense of hopeless rage as Claire had flung her accusations at him in the cramped dusk of the stillroom and takes a swig of his cocoa to steady himself. Claire had put a drop of whisky with it and for that he’s glad, the fiery mixture burning feeling into his throat.

 

‘She’s still my daughter. _Our_ daughter. She needs us, Jamie. Now more than ever.’ Slowly, she reaches across the table and lightly takes his hand in hers, squeezing gently.

 

‘You’ll go, then?’ Her eyes shine back at him; hope and love and a good many unreadable things burning through the inky depths of her pupils. A loose curl is falling determinedly down her forehead and he stands, pushing his chair back to reach over and tuck it back behind her ear, pressing a light, chaste kiss softly against her forehead. 

 

‘Aye, _mo nighean don,’_ he says at last, letting his hand reach down to cup her chin, tipping it upwards to meet his gaze, her eyes brimming over with simple, heartfelt devotion. ‘I will go. For her sake, if nothing else.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please feel free to read and review!
> 
> Comments, suggestions, constructive criticisms etc are like chocolate to my brain!
> 
> Much love,
> 
> Phoenixflames12 xxx


	15. It Will Be Enough

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jamie Fraser goes to talk to Tam McPherson about Faith and tries to come to terms with some of his own demons along the way

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to everyone who has taken the time to read and review this, your support and encouragement means the world to me!

The heather is a sharp prickle against his fingers as he climbs the path that leads away from the house and onto the east side of the moor. His fingers plunge deep against the rock, lichen catching under his fingernails, the weight of his stick with the bone crook nestled firmly in his palm.

 

The ground here is sparse, a sheet of golden tussock grass stabbed through with the black skeleton of burnt heather and clumps of cotton grass underlined by the soft, slightly acidic tang of bog myrtle.

 

The air is crisp and cool in his tattered lungs and he breathes in deeply, thankful for that one small mercy as his hands push up against his knees over the lip of the track and onto the flat stretch of plateau that was known to all at Lallybroch as Sgaoileadh Ridge.

 

Bran has bounded on ahead, heedless to his whistles. Jamie can hear him faintly, rustling through the undergrowth. A moment of perfect silence and then a triumphant bounding leap from the dog and the startled squawk of a red grouse rustled up in a cloud of russet and roan, his startled flight stark against the slate coloured sky.

 

Jamie watches the bird out of sight as it veers off the plateau and down into the relative safety of the undergrowth.

 

He will have to think about teaching Brianna and William how to shoot one day.

 

He had promised her once when she had found him in the hayloft surrounded by his rifle and a bundle of cleaning rags, the sharp tang of gun oil thick in the air.

 

Twilight had been glowing through the rafters and she had hung in the doorway and watched him in silent wonder as he had taken the gun apart and placed each section on a towel, ready for oil, two rabbits and a red grouse hen strung at his feet.  

 

He had taken her face in his hands then, smiling at the smudge of mud that ran across the snub of her nose, the fiery explosion of her freckles, the little wings that clung to her ears; the wild, fierce eyes that were an odd mix of blue and grey when they caught the light glowing with an unspoken question and kissed her fiercely on her forehead in reply.

 

‘ _If ye were any braver mo nighean ruaidh, ye’d be a lioness.’_

 

 It had been one of the last days of the season in 1939 when he had promised and then forgotten when his orders came through, trying not to think of his youngest daughter, his gypsy queen running through the kitchen on the day of his departure, her eyes shining as she had collapsed onto the kitchen sofa, face alight with a burst of private laughter.

 

‘ _Dhomhsa, chu’,_ he calls, forcing the memory back, the words crisp and carried on the still, cold breeze. He watches the hound’s ears prick up, greying muzzle high to the wind.

 

Overhead, the sun is caught in a veil of cloud, the shadow of the McPherson’s croft a hulk of darkness on the far side of the valley.

 

Bran comes in time, feet stiff and slow over the crinkled ground, pink tongue lolling through a bare-toothed grin. The large, grizzled head that he knows so well butts into his midriff, and he reaches down to fondle at the old dog’s ears, the wiry fur biting over his fingers, yellow eyes that still, even now, carry something distinctly wolf-like glowing back at him.

 

‘Couldn’t have ye flushing something out when we’re no’ in season, could we?’ He rubs the old dog’s head fiercely, hands falling into silken ears and then pushes him away, reaching heavily for his stick. The light is cold and clear and heavy with clouds, the wizened thorn ash trees bent double over their shadows in the light. Blood throbs through his ears, sloshing painfully in his lungs as he takes a deep breath, trying to clear them.

 

‘ _I_ _t’ll be with ye for the rest of your life, sir. The symptoms won’t be there, but ye’ll ne’er be fully clear. Ye’ll ne’er be fit for duty. Can ye live wi’ that, d’ye think?’ The doctor had peered over the rim of his spectacles at him, lying propped up on his pillows in the hospital bed feeling as weak as a new born kitten, one hand, his maimed one, he remembers now, clasped resolutely in Faith’s._

 

Whistling for the dog, he walks on.

 

* * *

 

 

Tam and Eileen McPherson’s croft is on the edge of Broch Mordha, sheltered from the worst of the winter storms by Kirk Hill.

 

An involuntary shiver courses through him at the sight of it, remembering all too clearly the feeling of abject nakedness that had coursed through him on that first, fateful Sunday.

 

He has not been back since then, preferring to seek his Lord in the open air. Anything to get away from the sensation of having all of his frailties exposed for all to see.

 

Sensing his master’s discomfort, Bran stops his nosing in a hawthorn bush for intriguing smells and pads over, yellow eyes gleaming with concern. Slowly, he butts his head into Jamie’s hand; a low, soft cry rumbling in the back of his throat.

 

 _‘I’m here,’_ the cry seems to say as Jamie tries to master himself; a ragged breath that he did not know he was holding forcing its way through his broken lungs.

 

 _‘Can ye live with that, d’ye think?’_ The doctor who had examined him had asked, voice soft with concern, eyes flickering from father to daughter and back again.

 

He could have done so, once.

 

If it is just the tuberculosis, he can live with it and gladly. It is a small price to pay for the sacrifices of all those who had fought to return him to Lallybroch, to his family, to…

 

But it isn’t.

 

It is so much more than that.

 

_It is the loss of his children, each one growing up without him._

_It is the weight of the young recruit who had died in his arms in the bitterly cold days of ’41, gasping out his last breath amid slivers of tattered moonlight, begging to be remembered to his Mother._

_It is Joe, or the memory of Joe, clutching at his hand in a ghost of his usual grip and begging for his soul to be remembered to Kirsty and the weans. ‘See them safe, brathair,’ he’d whispered; blind eyes roving, breath coming is ragged, laboured gasps._

_And Jamie had held him for as long as it took; his cousin’s body growing cold and heavy in his arms, slowly brushing his fingers over the dead man’s eyes._

_‘Slean leat, mo chariad choir. Slean leat.’_

_It is Brianna, clinging to him in a fierce embrace on the moor amid the fine, dreich drizzle, begging him not to make her go back to school._

_It is Faith watching an engagement ring spin dizzily across his desk, eyes bloodshot with emotions that he has no control over, face dark with fears that he has not witnessed._

_It is Willie shrinking away from him on the platform, burying his face in the skirt of Claire’s coat; amber eyes huge with mistrust. Willie, whimpering in his arms in Kirk, the one life that he had longed to know and now… Now…_

‘Mr Fraser…? Sir, are ye alright?’

 

He blinks stupidly at the blurred thing above him, not understanding what it is and why it comes to be there. Something cold and wet is pressed firmly in his ear; a soft, low whine echoing painfully through his head.

 

The voice is small and scared, something hot pawing at his oilskin. He breathes in and out again slowly, the rush of air hollow and strange through his chest.

 

‘D’ye think ye can sit up, Mr Fraser?’ The anxious voice is still there; the small, hot hands, for they were hands- tugging at his arm.

 

He shakes his head vigorously at the notion of sitting up and squeezes his eyes tight shut, wishing he could place his head between his knees as he remembers one of the nurses doing to a panicked patient at Sandhurst.

 

His throat feels hot; the scalding tang of blood surging through his lungs.

 

_Don’t throw up._

The cold, wet thing presses closer, the whine low and eerie as rough fur scrapes across his cheek.

 

Slowly, painfully and trying his best not to gag, he opens his eyes. The blurred thing above him cracks and dances, shifting slowly in the lean, worried face of his first cousin once removed, Hector Fraser.

 

‘There ye are!’ The last time that he’d seen Hector had been the Sunday before the 4th Seaforth Highlanders had been deployed. He’d been a chubby, round faced boy then with a perpetual slick of toffee slime caught around his mouth.

 

Something of that child lingers there still, but the puppy fat has given way to high, fine cheekbones, toffees to a scrappy moustache, the wide, MacGregor eyes that Hector and Mairi had inherited from their mother huge with concern.

 

‘Took a bad turn, did ye?’

 

Speech is beyond him.

 

All he can think about is breathing, one screaming breath after another.

 

_Don’t throw up._

‘I can go to the shop and get some salts, if ye’d like? Ye look a trifle peely-wally, if ye dinna mind me saying so. Where were ye off to anyway?’

 

Hector can say what he like for all he cares, shaking his head firmly at the questions, trying to clear it.

 

Bran presses close, his cries low and quiet. Slowly, he reaches out a trembling hand to scratch at the dog’s chin, his Gaelic coming back faster than his English.

 

_‘Chu math. Bonnie lad. Chu math.’_

‘I… Tam and Eileen… Faith….’

 

It seemed imperative that Hector know this and yet he doesn’t understand why.

 

‘The McPherson’s place, ye mean?’ Hector’s face clears briefly. ‘But why would ye want tae go there, Sir? If ye dinna mind me askin’?’

 

He cannot answer that.

 

* * *

 

 

It takes several attempts before Jamie can make it to his feet.

 

His mind comes back slowly, the need to reason with Tam and Johnny flooding his brain, the memory of Faith’s face pressed hard in his hands; blue cat eyes blazing with tearful love.

 

He makes his way carefully back up the main street, up into the small copse of field maples on the side of the hill.  As he crests it, he can just make out a column of smoke from the chimney of the little house, nestled in the valley, Eileen McPherson’s shadow in the dooryard as she scatters out corn for the hens; a checked apron tied stoutly around her waist.

 

As he watches, he sees Tam come out from behind the woodpile, shirt rolled up to the elbows, a low, flat cap pulled down over his forehead. Sees the old man slowly take up the weight of an axe dug deep in a block of ash, the weight of the worn handle visibly rippling down his arm and strike hard, the thud of metal on wood ricocheting through the dappled clearing, startling a pair of turtle doves from their roost in a Scots Pine in a flurry of dusky feathers.

 

The tremor catches him unawares. It shakes him, his hands balling themselves into fists at remembered pain. For a moment, the day stands still around him, paused as time it had done so long before, poised on a gulf of painful understanding.

 

Slowly, he lets it come. That pulse of dreadful memory flooding his brain in a terrible wave of remorse and loss, his body quivering with the rage of remembered helplessness.

 

 He knows that Claire yearns for him to forget and knows that he will never forget.

 

_Shivering in the snow, one gaunt face amongst many, his feet frozen into mounds of black ice through the remnants of once stout standard issue army boots, he had watched Private Bobby Irving being dragged to the whipping post._

_Irving had always been a joker in their company, swapping cigarettes and playing cards for a nip of whisky between trembling hands just hours before the final surrender._

_Irving’s face set and drawn, all joviality stripped away as he had been dragged out before the assembled prisoners, one bitterly cold day in December. The sky had been the colour of slate and Jamie remembers the way his maimed hand had ached in sympathy to the shivering man stripped to the waist before him, the stiff fingers numb and blue with early frostbite._

_Remembers Irving’s body arching in silent agony against the post as the first lash licked him; shaking skin sliced open in rivers of scarlet._

_Remembers the desperate, muffled scream that had bitten across the man’s lips as the lash came down again and again; his own heart aching in anguished sympathy._

_Remembers the trembling fingers of the man beside him reaching for his arm and the slow, painful process of trying to school his face back into its mask of blank control as Irving’s feet slipped and slid on the blood-soaked snow, knees buckling against his weight._

_Remembers the collective intake of breath as Irving’s feet finally knocked into the post and he collapsed, hanging like a broken marionette against the ropes, too weak even to shiver._

_‘Nehem Sie ihn weg,‘ the whip being thrown down to the snow; the curt, dispassionate stream of German slicing through his heart as the guard turns his back on the prisoner and nods to two of his companions, grey SS uniform stark against the blinding white marred by blood._

Beside him, Bran wines softly, butting his nose into Jamie’s pocket.

 

‘ _Sheas, mo chu,’_ his mouth is dry, the words scraping across his tongue like sandpaper.

 

Carefully, he readjusts the grip on the walking stick, feeling each finger slowly relax their trembling against the worn bone handle. Lays each memory to rest as he makes his way out of the cover and down the short slope towards the house.

 

* * *

 

 

‘Marriage? Ye ken that for sure?’

 

Tam’s eyes widen over his glass of whisky, gleaming in the dim light, softening in a small smile as he digests the information.

 

He nods slowly, thinking of Faith and the way that she had flung the ring across the darkness of his desk, the silver band glittering in the glare of his oil lamp, her eyes brimming over with unspoken fears.

 

‘Aye. I ken Johnny’s sweet on her, though I canna…’

 

They are sitting round the empty fireplace, sipping whisky and thinking of their children.

 

Bran’s head rests heavily on Jamie’s knee, yellow eyes glowing wolfishly up at him.

 

‘But what, man? I ken he’s a wee bit older than her, but…’

 

_But…._

_A Dhia, how to explain?_

_How to explain that he does not want to let Faith go until she’s ready?_

_How to explain that he can look at his seventeen-year-old daughter who turns eighteen in two months and still see the eleven-year-old faerie child who had spent her mornings marvelling over a nest of perfect, blue sparrow eggs that she had found behind the corn crib?_

_How he can still see her dwarfed in his chair, the morocco leather copy of ‘Berwick’s History of Birds’ with its marbled end papers open on her lap, a pair of tortishell spectacles balanced perilously at the end of her nose?_

_Can feel the weight of her settling herself on his shoulders, chubby fingers digging deep into his scalp for grip. Can hear her crowing in delight at being so high up as he strode out on a summer’s evening to check the cows?_

_Or else look back further still and see the tiny baby lying so perfectly still in the incubator; butterfly thin skin glowing in the harsh hospital light?_

‘She’s no’ ready tae think of marriage just yet,’ he says finally, choosing each word with care.

 

Tam’s eyebrows arch high, bristled and bushy in a worn, weathered face.

 

‘She’s seventeen, Jamie. Most lassies at her age would be jumping for joy at such a proposal. Laddies too,’ his voice has taken on a rueful tone and Jamie remembers, without understanding why he knows this, that Tam had married young.

 

It had been a short and bitter marriage. One full of regretful, vengeful secrets that had been the talk of the village. It was said that the bride had died in the bed of another man and Tam had near gone wild with grief; a ghastly secret whispered in dark corners, murmured with scandalised glances by old ladies behind their hands.

 

_Most lassies at her age would be jumping for joy at such a proposal._

_Not Faith. By the blessed Virgin and all the angels, not Faith._

‘She’s no’ as worldly as we’d like, as Johnny kens fine,’ he says slowly, rubbing the bridge of his nose, trying to think.

 

Tam has taken leave of his glass and is gazing into the blackened fireplace, fingers steepled meditatively under his chin, dark eyes narrowed in thought.

 

‘That could change though, aye? She’s got work at the hospital, surely… Mmphm,’ the older man makes a rough Scots noise in the back of his throat, gesturing into the depths of the fireplace and Jamie nods slowly, understanding his sentiment completely.

 

‘Aye, that’s not my point, _a chariad,’_ Bran’s head shifts slightly on his knee, ears pricking at the Gaelic.

 

From the passage, he can hear Eileen stamping her boots clean, lugging something that could be a basket of washing onto her hip. A tuneless washerwoman song that he remembers from his childhood slowly drifts to them and Tam shifts in his seat, dark eyes gleaming in the gloom.

 

‘So? Does the lassie no’ ken her mind? What does she say?’

 

‘She,’ he takes a long, slow breath, trying to marshal his thoughts.

 

Trying not to think of the way that Faith had come to him, heart laid bare in anguish, flinging the ring across the dark expanse of his desk.

 

‘ _I dinna know if I can do it! If I… If I want tae do it!’_

‘She says that she’s no’ ready. Not yet. That she loves Johnny, but like a brother, ken?’

 

_And I dinna want to lose her. I dinna think I can._

 

‘Aye’, Tam says slowly, considering his proposal. ‘Weel then.’

 

The words hang in the silence, something akin to regret passing fleetingly across the older man’s face, but whether it’s just down to a trick of the light, Jamie isn’t sure.

 

‘I’m no’ saying it wouldna be a good match,’ Tam says at last, his words slow and careful.

 

Jamie nods, reaching for his whisky. The drink warms the back of his throat with the soft, honey-like viscosity of a fine, strong spirit that had aged well.

 

‘And we- Eileen and myself, that is, would be that honoured tae be considered part of your family. But if ye dinna…’

 

He trails off and Jamie nods firmly, seeing his advantage and making to play it.

 

‘No, I dinna think it wise. I want her to see more o’ the world, no’ just Broch Mordha and Lallybroch and in a year or so we’ll talk.’

 

The older man nods sagely and raises his half drunk glass in a toast of understanding, words that were older than time itself ringing through the air as their glasses chink.

 

‘ _Slainte mhath!’_

 

As he drains the last of the whisky and shrugs on his coat to leave, Jamie’s fingers brush against his rosary that Claire had found for him in the bottom of her desk drawer in the drawing room.

 

‘ _I’d pray with this every evening when the children had gone to bed’, she’d said softly, standing on tiptoe to place it over his neck, the beechwood soft and comforting against his skin. They’d been standing in their bedroom; a soft, dusky light spilling from the curtains._

_‘I didn’t know what I prayed or whether it was the right thing, but I just knew that I had to do something. Something that might bring you home.’_

_‘I am home now, Sassenach’, he’d said quietly, reaching down to cup her chin, slowly drawing her lips to his, finding hints of salt and honey and mint at the taste of them. ‘And I’ll never leave ye and the bairns. Ever. Ye have my word.’_

But now, as he bids Tam and Eileen farewell and feels Bran’s loping gait pull up beside him in the darkness, it is not the Virgin, or even Claire that he thinks of.

 

It is Faith.

 

Faith beaming at him through the darkness; a soft, warm smile glowing on her lips.

 

He smiles at the memory, a soft chuckle catching at the back of his throat.

 

_‘I hope it’ll be enough, mo cholom geal.’_

_‘It will, Da. I know it will.’_

 

* * *

**_Gaelic and German translations_ **

_‘ _Slainte mhath!’ = 'cheers! your health' etc, etc__

__

__'Sheas,' = stay_ _

 

__'Sgaoileadh Ridge' = Curlew Ridge_ _

 

__'Dhomohsa, chu' = 'to me, dog'_ _

 

_'Nehem Sie ihn weg' = 'take him away'_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please feel free to read and review! Comments, suggestions, constrictive criticisms, questions etc are like chocolate to my brain!
> 
> Much love and enjoy x


	16. Fathers and Sons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> September, 1945 
> 
> After coming across a box full of his army possessions and attempting to stem unwanted memories, Jamie Fraser receives a telephone call that throws the fragile life that he has regained at Lallybroch into confusion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to everyone who has taken the time to read and review this! Your feedback, encouragement and support mean the world to me!

Mid-September 1945

The phone call comes on a blustery September morning when the first cool hints of Autumn are beginning to linger, the tang of change sharp and sweet in the air.

 

Jamie is stripped to his shirt-sleeves in the workshop; the slow, methodical work of shifting through the detritus of six years of neglect soothing to his soul. Through the wall, he can hear the soft hum of Claire and Brianna’s voices as Claire shows their youngest daughter the rudiments of her work and for that he’s glad.

 

Glad that Brianna can at last find something to mend the hole that has yawned in her heart since she has left school. Glad beyond measure that he can still hear the comforting rustling rattle of jars being pulled from their shelves, the click of lids being opened, the thud of pestle against mortar, a soft, barrage of swearing from his wife, Brianna’s voice soft in wonder at whatever she’s being shown.

 

Anything to get away from his thoughts.

 

Anything to keep his mind from wandering deep into the dark places where it liked to linger. Anything to stop the sharp aches of the war that hurt more than any physical wound, the yawning hole dug deep in a dark part of his heart that was filled with an almost animalistic yearning for the comradery of the army, for the life of his brothers, his comrades-at-arms pulsing through him, for the knowledge that he’s needed for something that’s bigger than himself from consuming him altogether.  

 

The dust is thick in the small, cramped space as he pulls down the cardboard boxes from the top shelves, rummaging through them for spare tools, desperately trying not to think. It swirls through his lungs, pulling at the weight of his fifth box which tumbles into his arms with a clunk. For a moment, he staggers under its’ weight, bracing his arms back against the corners and shifts it onto the workbench.

 

And stops, the breath he is going to take catching painfully, flooding back down his throat.

 

The finger that reaches out to brush away the worst of the dust is trembling, eyes blurring suddenly as he reads Claire’s clear, copperplate hand, still visible after five years of neglect.

 

**Fraser. J. A. M. M.**

**Army.**

**Captain.**

**Service No. 2,845,021**

‘ _A Dhia, Sassenach,’_ he hears himself whisper as memories thought long forgotten flood back.

 

_And all at once he is standing in the barracks back at Fort George in an empty billet room in ‘39, just days before he’d been granted compassionate leave from the SM to say his farewells. His meagre possessions are packed carefully away in this cardboard box, the weight of his dog tags pressing close against the throb of his Adam’s apple, metal clinking against the soft, worn wood of his rosary._

_They had been instructed to put aside anything of sentimental, familial or religious value, but being in the army for nearly twelve years had turned the Highland superstition that was part of his blood into something deeper._

_He had held onto his rosary with all the strength that he could muster until the surrender at St- Valery when he had traced the prayers in his sleep. The Hail Mary and act of Contrition had been murmured each night before light’s out, each one finished with a murmured plea to whichever god happened to be listening to see his loved ones safe._

The dog tags glint up at him amid a sea of past detritus; their worn, cold weight cupped perfectly in his hand, the chill of the beaded metal necklace running through his fingers.

 

They were known as milestones of mortality in the army, each one stamped through in shallow punched capitals with the wearer’s army number, initials, blood group if known and religious denomination.

 

 In that instant, Jamie finds that he cannot bear to look at them.

 

Cannot bear to let the memories that they hold come to the surface.

 

The memory of Major General Fortune slowly going from man to man with a tin bucket and a small, encouraging word. The clink of metal of metal ringing eerily in a silence had been horrendous, the dreadful knowledge of the surrender and the fear of what awaited them afterwards far, far worse.

 

‘ _Right lads, dog tags off. We willnae be needing them where we’re going an’ it’s best if the Bosch dinna get ahold of them. If by some miracle we can get oot o’ this shithole alive, they’ll be sent tae your next o’kin. Have faith in that and ye’ll be alright.’_

 

Pushing the tags firmly down into the heart of the box, he shoves it away and steps back, hands clenched on the smooth, worn wood of the workbench, knuckles pulsing white against his skin, breathing fast and ragged in his chest.

 

_Enough._  The thought is a ragged, sobbing breath in his throat as he squeezes his eyes shut against the onslaught, willing them away.

_Let it be enough._

_Please._

* * *

 

He doesn’t know how long he stays there, arms braced against the wood, trying to master himself.

 

It is only when there is a short, timid knock at the door, does he come back, turning abruptly from the table at the sound of the door creaking open.

 

‘Da?’

 

Willie stands in the doorway, framed in the soft, autumnal light, his crown of auburn curls blazing; bright, whisky coloured eyes that were so like Claire’s wide and questioning.

 

‘What is it then, _mo mac?_ ’

 

‘There’s a… There’s a man on the telephone for ye, Da. I answered it, but ‘twas a man I didna ken. He was askin’ for ye and so…’

 

He trails off, looking at his feet and Jamie nods, closing the gap between them in two strides.

 

_Da._

The word sounds so strange on the boy’s lips and yet hearing it come from the son that he thought at times that he’d never live to see makes Jamie’s heart swell with love.

 

‘It’s alright, _a bhalaiach,’_ he says softly, dropping to his knees and placing a comforting hand on the boy’s shoulder, tipping the lad’s chin up, the weight of bone and sinew pulsing through his palm. ‘I’ll get it. Is Faith up? It’s past noon.’

 

‘She’s on night shift. Mam said she could sleep if she wanted,’ his son’s face takes on an expression that makes him look so like his namesake that Jamie feels a shiver pulse down his spine, the ghost of his long-dead brother passing softly through the quiet.

 

Every now and then, in the rare moments of complete and perfect stillness granted to him in captivity, he’d think of his brother. Would feel Willie with him, standing by his right shoulder, shielding him from the worst of it as he had done so often in their youth.

 

Sometimes his parents and Jenny.

 

Frequently Ian.

 

More often, Claire and the children.

 

‘Aye,’ he says after a moment, letting his dead go out into the quiet of the early afternoon.

 

‘Aye, fine then. I’ll get the telephone. Go on now,’ slowly he releases his son and pushes him carefully away.

 

Willie grins up at him; a small smile that is full of love and hope and he grins back in return, the darkness of past memories fleeing back into the shadows.

 

Jamie watches him run off through the kailyard, scattering the hens in a cacophony of speckled browns and golds, their indignant clucking cracking the peaceful quiet.

 

Willie’s hair catches in the light, blazing with the lights of a thousand unseen sunsets.

 

Jamie watches him until he is out of sight, under the archway, through the kailyard and up into the woods beyond, before turning to the house.

 

It wouldn’t do to keep whoever was on the phone waiting.

 

* * *

 

 

 

‘Broch Mordha 6524,’ the words feel strange and dry in his mouth as he picks up the receiver, a dull ache pulsing through his chest.

 

‘Fraser!’ The line crackles slightly, but the voice at the other end is unmistakable.

 

It is a voice that he remembers speaking with quiet authority from the lectern at morning prayers or at the school’s Sunday service, extolling the gospel to a gathered crowd of ninety boys ranging from the age of eight to thirteen; pale, upturned faces set in various degrees of interest, Willie winking down at him from his cohort of upper middle and senior prefects.

 

It is a voice that he remembers softly holding him as he stood in the headmaster’s office on that dreadful March morning with the dawn chorus and the spring blossom bursting into life around him, numb of all feeling apart from the aching desire for the red, Turkish rug to open wide and darkness to swallow him whole.

 

‘Mr Piper?’

 

He hopes that the astonishment that he feels doesn’t come across in his voice.

 

‘How are you?’

 

Piper’s tone, so conciliatory, so unlike any of the other masters who had brushed off the rage and pain and grief that had swept through him in those first weeks after Willie’s death, is still the same.

 

Still holds the hidden rush of unspoken questions that he cannot find adequate answers to; but knows that he has to try.

 

_How was the war?_

‘Aye, fine. Thank you, sir.’

 

A faint laugh splutters across the line.

 

‘There’s no need to call me, ‘sir’ Fraser. You’re not eight years old anymore. Children all well? How many have you got now?’

 

‘Three. Faith’s eighteen in February, Brianna will be fifteen this October. They’re braw sir, thank you.’

 

_And bonny and canty and loved. Loved so much._

‘You’ve a son as well, do you not? I think I remember it being announced in the school magazine a few years back. How old will he be now?’

 

‘Seven,’ the word falls through Jamie like a stone plummeting down his throat, the feeling that he’s signed his son’s death warrant aching in his heart. Slowly, he draws his free hand back, running it through his hair, trying to think.

 

_A Dhia, Willie, what am I doing?!_

‘He’ll be turning eight this January. Claire… My wife and I…’

 

He trails off, the worlds that he wants to say, desperately needs to say stopping dead against his lips.

 

_I hardly know the lad._

_Please._

_Don’t make this harder than it already is!_

But instead of saying those things, he swallows thickly and affirms the unasked question that hovers over the phone.

‘My wife and I were thinking of enrolling him in wi’ next year’s first formers. We’ll come down wi’ the lad and see the school beforehand. Make sure it’s the right place for him, ye ken?’

 

‘Oh, no need to do that, Fraser. If it suited your brother and you, then I’m sure that it’ll suit your son. William, is it?’

 

‘Aye,’ the lie is barely a breath against numb lips.

 

_Aye and ye ken fine well what it did to my brother. What it cost me to face you afterwards. I willnae have my son go through that._

‘Well then,’ the line is crackling; Piper’s voice fading against the buzz of the breaking connection. ‘Goodbye, Fraser. I look forward to hearing from you soon.’

 

‘And you,’ it is all Jamie can do to stop his voice from shaking.

 

His hands are trembling as he replaces the receiver, the third and fourth fingers of his maimed hand shaking in a tremulous tattoo against the polished elm of the table, his knuckles standing stark and white against his skin.

 

Slowly, he takes a deep breath and holds it, feeling his tattered lungs scream in protest and releases it, silently counting to ten.

 

The table digs under his splayed hands, palms pushing back against the wood.

 

Sharp pinpricks of light explode before his eyes as he squeezes them shut, willing his heart to stop thundering through his ears. Willing the blood to stop coursing through his lungs, the thought that he’s just sentenced his son to something that’s completely out of his control to leave.

 

‘Da?’

 

It takes a moment for him to realise that he isn’t alone.

 

Slowly, he pushes away from the table and straightens up.

 

Willie is standing in the doorframe, ruddy and golden in the autumnal light, eyes wide and questioning.

 

‘Are ye… Are ye really going tae send me away?’

 

The question hangs in the silence for a moment that feels like an eternity before crashing to the floor, the fateful words never to be uttered again.

_Oh, mo mac…_

‘I heard ye on the phone, just then. I…I ken it was wrong. I ken that I shouldna listen at keyholes, but…’

 

The words come out in a tumbled rush and he stumbles to a stop, looking sham faced, the tips of his ears blushing pink with guilt.

 

‘Come here,’ Jamie says quietly, and Willie comes, burying his head into his father’s chest, clinging to him with his all his might.

 

* * *

 

 

‘Do ye really want me tae go away to school, Da?’

 

The sun is barely rising, early tips of incremental pink and grey flooding the sky.

 

The air is sharp and cool on their faces, the give of dew-soaked earth soft under their feet as together they descend the path from the house down towards the main loch.

 

The rods are slung at Jamie’s back, Willie trotting to keep up with him with the tackle box.

 

The water ahead of them is glassy calm, only the faint whistle of the wind sending ripples over the surface. From the cover of the reeds, he sees the soft shadow of a moorhen skitter out, wings pattering in tiny pools as it bolts for cover.

 

From somewhere in the distance, he hears a faint _‘franrk, franrk’_ call slice the air and then a grey heron rising up from the depths of the bed. Pulling Willie down, he points silently upwards to see the great, beating shadow of the bird rise up and over them towards the safety of the other side, long neck outstretched against the dawn sky.

 

The question pulls him short, slicing an icy bolt of pain through his heart.

 

Settling further down on his haunches, he tightens his grip on his son’s shoulder, feeling the weight of bone and muscle rising into the warmth of his palm, turning the boy to face him.

 

‘Yes. No. I dinna ken, _a bhalaiach,’_ he bites his lip until he tastes blood, searching Willie’s face. The amber eyes that hold so much of Claire in them shine back at him, wide in a pale, freckled face that is beginning to lose the chubbiness of babyhood that he remembers so well.

 

‘But I ken what it’s like tae go away,’ he says quietly and the boy nods slowly, eyes narrowing in concentration.

 

‘I remember my first time going away, wi’ my brother, Willie.’

 

His son’s eyes prick up that.

 

‘Is that Uncle Willie? The one…’

 

He trails off, suddenly uncertain of what he wants to say and Jamie nods, his next words more spoken to himself than to the boy.

 

‘Your Mam would’ve told you about him, when I was away. He died o’ the smallpox, when I was eight. Just a wee bit older than you. He carved the bittie wooden snake that’s in your bedroom. He gave it to me on the train and told me to keep it with me, always.’

 

‘Aunt Jenny says I look like him a bit,’ Willie interjects and Jamie cannot help but smile, considering the lad.

 

His memories of Willie in the flesh grow fainter with every passing year, so that he now is more of a spiritual presence than a tangible person. But watching his son crouched beside him on the dew-soft grass, he thinks he can still see something of his brother in the lad.

 

‘Aye, ye do. A bit,’ he murmurs, reaching out a hand to ruffle the crown of auburn curls. Willie jerks back in reflex, but then moves closer, pushing himself under Jamie’s arm.

 

‘I was afraid, when I left that first time,’ he says quietly, gazing out towards the clear darkness of the loch beyond the reed bed and the path beyond that dipped towards the Home Farm.

 

‘But ye’re never afraid. Not even when they captured you. Faith and Brianna said so’, Willie’s eyes are wide with reproach and he has to bite back a chuckle deep in his throat.

 

Around them, a cold wind is stirring through the silver birches that surround the loch, sending ripples of white horses over the still, black water.

 

‘I was then. Both times. I was afraid that I’d never see you or your Mam or your sisters again. Afraid that I’d never see my parents or Jenny, or Ian again.’

 

‘But… Willie helped you? I… I mean…’ He stammers to a stop and Jamie nods, pulling the boy closer, pressing a firm kiss deep into the crown of his curls.

 

‘Aye, he did. And… And when he died, his spirit was there, wi’ me. Guiding me. He guides you too, I think.’

 

Willie struggles out of his arms at that last, eyes wide and glowing in the soft, golden light of the sunrise.

 

‘He does?’

 

Jamie nods.

 

‘Aye, he does. And I will do too and your Mam. Remember that.’

 

A soft smile flickers across his son’s face as he buries himself into Jamie’s lap, lulled into quiet by the soft lap of the water against the rocks and Jamie’s sigh slips into a smile.

 

From now on he will remember this moment, remember the soft play of the dawn light shining on the sweet, bold face of his son and for that he is glad beyond all measure.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please feel free to read and review!
> 
> Comments, suggestions, constructive criticisms etc are like chocolate to my brain!
> 
> Much love and enjoy x


	17. Healing Hearts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> September, 1945
> 
> Woken in the night by the absence of her husband, Claire Fraser goes to look for him and unearths a few unspoken terrors along the way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to read and review this!
> 
> Your feedback and support mean the world to me and I can't thank you all enough for sticking with this story!
> 
> Just a little thing to bear in mind: this chapter deals, amongst other things, with the implicit mention of rape, so if that's not your thing, please be careful, particularly near the end.

The twin calls of medicine and single motherhood have trained Claire’s body to know exactly when something is not as it seems.

 

It is therefore hardly surprising when she wakes in the small, quiet hours of the very early morning, when the sky is still a dense and inky black, to an empty bed.

 

‘Jamie?’

 

Her husband’s name is a dry croak in her throat, echoing in the chilly silence of the bedroom.

 

No answer.

 

Only the faint ripple of the sheets pulled tight across the bed under her fingers and the soft, lingering ghosts of his dense, male musk to tell her that he has been to bed at all.

 

Her heart hammering like a bodhran in her throat, she shuffles closer, fingers working frantically over the cotton.

 

Outside, the night is still and black; sharp pinpricks of light showing the stars studded against a velvet black backdrop.

 

Out on the moor, a tawny owl hoots into the silence.

 

‘Bloody man’, she whispers, half in endearment, half frustration, her eyes stinging as they adjust to the darkness, blinking hard as her fingers finally prevail in their quest and close around something that feels distinctly like paper.

 

Grabbing the paper, she crawls across the bed and fumbles for the switch on the bedside lamp, squeezing her eyes shut as the glaring electric bulb flares into life, throwing strange, gaunt shadows across the blue papered walls.

 

‘ ** _My dearest Sassenach’,_** she reads, her heart clenching at the slightly uneven script of a man forced to write with his weaker hand for the sake of appearances.

****

**_‘The years shall run like rabbits,_ **

**_For in my arms I hold,_ **

**_The Flower of the Ages,_ **

**_And the first love of the world._ **

****

**_But all the clocks in the city,_ **

**_Began to whir and chime:_ **

**_O let not Time deceive you,_ **

**_You cannot conquer time._ **

****

**_Your most obedient and devoted husband,_ **

 

**_J. A. M. M. F.’_ **

****

‘You bloody Scot,’ she whispers with a tremulous sniff, the words shattering like fragments of broken glass against her tongue, the ache in her heart throbbing painfully with love and worry.

 

‘You know exactly where it hurts, don’t you?’ The question is barely a breath, whispered out to the absent man whom she loves above all things.

 

‘ _I love ye.’_ It is almost as if he is there with her in the quiet, his voice caught in the silence, a sad smile shivering on the corner of his lips, whispering his words into her hair. ‘ _Because I canna lie in your presence. Because I ken that ye love me and all that I was and what I am and will become.’_

It takes a moment before she finds the words that need to be spoken in reply, the letter crumpling in her fist, eyes burning, the still wet ink bleeding over her knuckles.

 

‘Yes. I love you, James Fraser. And I’ll do whatever it takes to bring you back to us. Do you hear me?’

 

* * *

 

 

The house creaks and groans around her as she wraps a tartan rug around her shoulders.

 

A sliver of tattered moonlight puddles onto the bare, wooden floorboards by the bay windows, the wind whistling through the garden and she remembers Jamie standing there, arms braced against the sill, shoulders hunched and knotted past endurance as he struggled in the grips of an unknown nightmare.

 

Remembers the haunted look that had burnt in his eyes as he had turned to her, face still clouded by the terrors of a dream not yet shared, the shadows throwing the lines and bends of his face into sharp, gaunt relief.

 

Remembers…

 

‘Enough Beauchamp,’ she says firmly, shaking the memories away, trying to still the thunderous beat of her heart roaring through her ears. ‘That’s quite enough.’

 

Now is not the time to think about the past.

 

Turning away from the window, she goes out of the room, closing the door behind her with a faint click.

 

Someone has left one of the oil lamps burning on in the passageway as she steps out into the darkness. The antique brass knob with its’ thistle head is cold to her touch, the flame spitting a little as she trims the wick, shadows leaping across the ancient, smut stained glass. Her reflection glows back at her, pale and cracked in the antique glass. Wide, hazel eyes; whisky coloured, Jamie often called them, glow out of a tired face that wear the weight of the years like rouge.

 

Tentatively, she reaches up to tuck an escaped curl back behind her ear; the fine, sharp lines of crow’s feet just beginning to pull at the corners of her eyes. A soft vertical line that she hasn’t noticed before is making an appearance against the thickening of her jawline, deepening around her lips. Her fingers travel further, thumb pressing against the soft skin of her lower lip, imagining Jamie’s hands. Jamie’s touch holding her as he had done so often in the heady, early days of their marriage, extolling her beauty in his mother’s tongue that turned every word to poetry.

 

_‘Will you still want me when I’m old and crabbed?’_

His soft, low chuckle echoes to her through the mists of time.

_‘Of course, mo Sorcha. Always.’_

 

Her bare toes curl reflexively away from the chill of the blue velvet carpet and tearing her gaze away, she pads towards Faith’s empty room at the end of the passageway. Her heart aches for their eldest daughter caught in that strange, twilight time between wakefulness and sleep in the hospital at Broch Mordha and she turns away, down the dark and narrow staircase that acted as a shortcut to the second floor and the guest rooms.

 

 There is a chink of light under William’s door at the end of the passage, and she moves to it instinctively, a moth drawn to a flame.

 

A low, pained moan comes through the old, thick wood and her heart clenches, her son’s sleep filled voice thick with fear and sorrow, muffled in the night.

 

‘No… No, Da… Dinna make me go… Please… Dinna go… I…’

Heart thudding somewhere in her throat, she pushes the door open.

 

* * *

 

 

Willie’s curtains have blown open, cool gusts of autumn air billowing at the thick fabric.

 

Quickly and quietly, she moves towards the window and pulls it down, the worn wood creaking a little under her fingers, moving in almost the same stride to the bed.

 

Her youngest child’s room is tiny, with just enough space to fit a bed and two bookshelves which are crammed full of old model cars, clay animals, some _Roy of the Rovers_ comics and some darkly smooth stones from the loch shore.

 

An ancient sepia toned photograph of Willie, Jenny and Jamie taken when her husband was about five or six that is curled yellow with age at the edges stands on the nightstand, her fingers brushing the Elmwood frame as she reaches across to switch on the lamp.

At last the ancient wick flares into life, throwing the situation into stark relief.

 

‘Willie? Willie, it’s Mam. It’s just a dream, _a chuisle_. Wake up,’ slowly she eases herself onto the mattress, one hand reaching out to grip the squirming shoulder that is tangled amid a sea of white bed linen.

 

A peep of fiery auburn hair is just visible, turning violently as he struggles out of the bedclothes.

 

‘Mam?’

 

Wide, hazel eyes blink owlishly up at her, his face streaked and swollen in sorrow, as he clings to her monkey-like.

 

‘I’m here,’ she says softly, holding his gaze as he blinks, the jagged vestiges of the dream still shining in his face.

 

‘What were you dreaming about?’ The question is barely whispered as she pulls him closer, tucking him firmly onto her lap as if he is a bairn of two or three and not a boy of nearly the grand old age of eight. The lines and bends of wiry boyhood pull through his shirt and she holds him tighter to her breast, wishing that she didn’t have to let him go.

 

‘I…’ He sniffles, choking back a hiccoughed sob and drags his pyjama sleeve across his swollen eyes.

 

‘I… I was dreamin’ about… About goin’ away an’… Ye an’ Da an’ Faith an’ Bree an’ Uncle… Uncle Willie… Da’s brother, ye ken?’ His eyes are shining up at her, pleading with her to understand.

 

‘Yes,’ she whispers, nuzzling her head into his hair. ‘Go on. What happened? It’ll make it better, promise.’

 

‘We…’ He gulps, throat working furiously before he can continue.

 

‘We were on the platform at Inverness an’ I had a school trunk an’ there were boys, lots of boys, all in green and grey uniforms an’… Ye were sending me away tae school an’ Da said it would be fun, but he’d miss me an’… An’ then…’

 

 _‘_ And then?’ She strives to keep her voice soft, coaxing out the details.

 

‘An’ then the train began to pull away and I leant out o’ the window tae wave tae ye and Da an’ everyone an’… Da started to run to keep up wi’ the train. He was shoutin’ something but I… He… He disappeared in all the smoke an’… I couldna…’

 

‘Oh, Willie,’ she whispers, the weight of sinewy shoulders throbbing against her breast.

 

‘Your father loves you very, very much’, she manages to say after a while, pushing him away from her and tipping his chin up so he can see her clearly. Fiery eyes glow back at her, their gaze tremulous and questioning and her heart cracks with love for them. ‘And… And so do I.’

 

‘You must know that. Above all things, you must. Hold it in your heart and never, ever let it get out of sight or let it go. Do you understand?’

 

He nods silently, eyes wide.

 

_Aye, Mam._

 

‘But _why_ does he want tae send me away?’

 

The question hangs in the silence for a moment that feels like an eternity before crashing to the ground, never to be uttered again.

 

The words, so still and serious to be uttered by the mouth of a child that she can still see as a bairn at her breast, pull her up short, the fact that she cannot answer them honestly tearing her heart apart afresh.

 

‘I don’t know, William.’

 

There is still a lot that she doesn’t know about this man who has returned from the war; this man who was and is her husband.

 

‘A lot of bad things happened to your Da when he was at that school,’ she says slowly.

 

‘He’s told me very little of what went on, but from what I can gather, after his mother, that’s Granny Ellen whose portrait’s in the hall and his brother, Willie, died, it was very hard for him to feel as though he belonged there. I don’t really think the masters understood what he was going through and Grandda and Aunt Jenny…’

 

‘But why does he want tae send _me_ there too? What if… What if…’ He breaks off, lower lip trembling.

 

‘That won’t happen. We’re safe here at Lallybroch. Nothing’s going to happen.’ The words are low and fierce in her mouth as she brushes back an escaped curl out of his eyes, fingers lingering on the tight, hot skin and he nods, wide eyes never leaving her face.

 

 _Mam will make it all right,_ the eyes seem to say, his hand squeezing her own.

 

‘Everything will be perfectly all right, _mo chuisle._ Go to sleep now. I need to go and check on Brianna.’

 

‘Love ye, Mam,’ his voice is heavy with impending sleep, the whisky coloured eyes already half closed.

 

‘I love you too, my darling boy,’ she whispers, the words heavy in her throat as he snuggles further down under the coverlet.

 

Slowly, Claire rises from the bed, hearing the mattress sag and spring back into place.

 

Leaning over the slowly relaxing body, she brushes a soft kiss against his cheek, watching through shining eyes as a small smile quivers at the corners of his lips.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The night air is a cool slap to Claire’s cheeks as she steps out of the back kitchen, pulling the heavy door to. She is wrapped up in one of Jamie’s stalking oilskins and three pairs of mismatched woollen socks that had been cast offs from the batches that she, Faith and Brianna had knitted for the troops, cocooning her feet inside her Wellingtons.

 

The sky is a perfect inky black, the wind whistling and howling through the trees. The flame in the hurricane lamp gutters slightly against the glass, throwing odd, distorted shadows against the laurel bushes, the great, looming shadow of the Scot’s Pine that glowered over the laundry green.

 

The chill of it makes her pull the coat closer, thinking of Brianna and William tucked up in their beds and Faith, warm and safe at the hospital for another six hours.

 

_All of them hers._

_All of them safe._

_Except one._

Her heart cries out in the silence, yearning, searching for the husband that she’s lost.

 

Remembering with a pang of longing that last, smoke tinged farewell on the platform at Inverness when he had held her close and whispered his love into her hair, the warm weight of his palm cupping her cheek, eyes blazing with unadulterated love.

 

‘ _I wish that you didn’t have to go,’_ she’d whispered into his chest and meant it, knowing that her pleas for him not to go were hopeless.

 

And he had smiled down at her; a small, humourless laugh catching in the back of his throat, bending to kiss her and swing the children up in turn.

 

‘ _Ye marry an officer and ask such a thing of him, mo duinne? Ye should ken me better than that!’_

_Is it selfish of her to wish for the man whom she had waved goodbye to on the platform on that blustery September afternoon with the last vestiges of summer heat still clinging in the air, to come back to her?_

‘Get a grip, Beauchamp,’ she says crossly, drawing Jamie’s oilskin further over her and stamping in the chill. There is time enough for reminiscing, but now all she can think about, all she must think about, is finding Jamie and trying by whatever means necessary, to bring him back to her.

 

* * *

 

 

She tries the Broch first.

 

The moorland stretches out before her; a perilous, dark expanse that falls away onto the hill where the hulking shadow of the stone shelter Is just visible.

 

_Jamie had taken her up here just before their marriage, in the strange, precious days of their joint leave._

 

_They’d sat in the fine, warm drizzle with a tartan blanket, a flask of whisky and one of Mrs Crook’s fruit cakes, silent for the most part, watching the rise and fall of the mist over the glen, hands entwined, listening to the slow thrum of the rain around them._

 

_‘It’s beautiful, isn’t it?’_

_The question had been a hesitant whisper, a deep blue look shining out of a freckled face that looked far younger than twenty-three._

_And she had squeezed his hand, listening to the dry clucking call of a male capercaillie defending his territory echoing in the glen below._

_‘It is. Truly, Jamie. I’m very happy to be here. Thank you.’_

_Thank you for giving me a second chance._

_I just hope that I can give you the same._

The thought of that outing is the one thing that sustains her through the long, climb through the woodland and onto the moor.

 

Further and further up she climbs, blood roaring through her ears, the chill of the night tearing at her lungs. The trees lunge out through the night, humps of fallen logs, snags of brambles snapping at her nightdress, the lamp flickering and guttering against the smut-stained glass.

 

The Broch looms before her before she’s truly registered that she’s climbed the hill. The wind cuts against her cheek, her hair a wild, wet tangle slapping in the chill night air.

 

‘Jamie?’

 

Her husband’s name bites against chattering teeth.

 

A slight shift of movement in the darkness.

 

‘Claire?’

 

And suddenly he is in front of her, the bones of the face that she loves so well gaunt in the flickering light.

 

‘What are ye doing here, _a leannan_? Ye should be abed, no?’

 

The question is tight and pained in the quiet, something sad and strange passing through deep, wide eyes.

 

‘I… I couldn’t sleep, knowing… Thinking that you were out here,’ she replies just as quietly, moving in two strides to him, wanting nothing more than to hold him and banish all his hurts.

 

Wanting to talk to him about Willie, about Faith, about Brianna, about _him_ , wanting to hear his counsel and yet not knowing how or where to begin.

 

His face is ashen with exhaustion; a shattered sigh pulling from his lips, something that could be a smile flickering on his mouth as she rakes him up and down in a cursory inspection. The faint, heady tang of whisky clings to his lips and as she raises the lamp higher, she can just make out a bottle lying flat on the upturned crate that acted as a rudimentary table, its’ remains slowly dripping down into the packed earth below.

 

‘Come here, _a nighean don._ I’ll warm ye,’

 

‘I…’

 

‘Ye’re half frozen, _mo duinne,’_ he replies to her unspoken retort, his arms wide and, fumbling for the ancient, rusted hook set high in the stone wall to hang the lamp, she enters them, burying herself in the warmth and safety of his embrace, listening to the steady thrum of his heart under her cheek.

 

‘I was worried for you,’ she says after a long moment, her words falling lamely through the silence, a finger reaching to twine itself around a soft, downy lock of grey hair that curls at his temple.

 

‘Aye,’ he murmurs quietly, the word lost in her hair.

 

‘I couldna sleep. It wasna a dream of such, just…’ He stops, trying to find the right words.

 

‘Just a feeling, a need. A need tae get away. I’m sorry that I didna wake ye. I thought that the poem might help ye a wee bit, though.’

 

‘I’m sorry too’, she whispers back, and then half in anger, half anguish: ‘You bloody Scot! Why W.H Auden, out of interest?’

 

‘O let not Time deceive you. You cannot conquer Time,’ he quotes slowly. ‘I think ye ken why, Claire.’ For a moment, his face holds a strange, haunted look that could just be a trick of the flickering light.

 

‘They have to grow up, Jamie. You said so yourself, remember?’

 

‘Aye’, he nods slowly.

 

‘And Faith’s almost eighteen,’ it’s a poor advantage, but the only one she has at the present moment.

 

‘It’s no’ Faith I’m worried about,’ he says quickly, before checking himself. ‘Weel.. It is, but she… I’ve had more time with her, if ye ken what I mean _Sassenach?_ ’

 

‘I do,’ Claire whispers, her voice lost in the fabric of his shirt.

 

‘She was a lady at six and I just wish… I just hope that she kens her own mind before she makes any decisions.’

 

The rest of the statement remains unspoken, but Claire knows what he means without it.

 

_Johnny._

‘He’s an honourable lad, Jamie. A trite rash at times I’ll grant you, but he will stand by her. Give him the time to trust her and give her the same.’

 

‘There’s a difference between trust and hope, _Sassenach,_ and ye ken that as well as I do.’

 

Something strange flickers in his eyes then and she sighs, pushing out of his embrace, shaking her head.

 

She does not want to be reminded of the flickering flames of hope that had leapt into life in her heart during the war, only to be snuffed out again and again when the rumours proved to be little more than the rotten fruits of desperate village gossip.

 

Jamie moves slowly round her, the guttering light of the lamp throwing his shadow in odd, distorted shapes against the stone wall of the broch, reaching to cup her chin so that she is forced to look at him.

 

‘I wish that you could just trust him. Trust them both,’ she manages at last, holding his gaze.

 

‘I would’, he says slowly, a shadow of long lost humour in his eyes. ‘If I could decide whether to hope that he comes quickly wi’ his question or pray that he does not come at all.’

 

Claire chuckles despite herself, unable to fault his logic.

 

‘And Brianna?’

 

She snuggles closer, the warm, strong weight of his fingers peeling away the sodden layers of the oilskin, his soft, male heat flooding through her

 

‘I think we’ll have her for a little while longer, _mo chiride._ She’s happy wi’ you in the stillroom, isn’t she? And then when she’s a little older…’

 

‘Yes, but….’

 

_She has always thought that Brianna’s paths lie outside the comforts of Lallybroch._

_Had always imagined their second daughter, the light of Jamie’s heart, forebye, pursuing her future at university in Edinburgh or Glasgow._

_Remembers Brianna coming to her, soon after Jamie had written a letter to Mr McAlister withdrawing her from Broch Mordha Grammar School, begging to let her go away._

_‘I need to not live out my entire life in the tiny village where I was born,’ she had replied when Claire had refused her; blue eyes flashing dangerously as she had wrung out her cloth on the scrubbed wood of the workbench with a vengeance._

_‘I need to see things and be things, because I’m terrified that if I don’t, I’ll live out the rest o’ my life here as a crofter’s wife and I dinna want that. I’d… I’d go fair mad an’…’_

_‘I know,’ Claire had replied, her heart bursting with love for this wild, feisty, ferocious girl with the spirit of a lioness and a heart of gold._

_Remembers the weight of Brianna’s hair carding through her fingers, the fierce grip of those capable hands clinging to her with all their might._

_‘And I want tae make Da proud, but…’ The words had been muffled in the thick worsted of her work apron._

_‘You do. He loves you so much, mo chuisle. More than you know. Whatever you decide to do. Your Da and I will be right here for you, every step of the way.’_

‘I think we should think about her future, Jamie. She’s fiercely bright and she’d thrive at university. She shouldn’t waste her potential here at Lallybroch.’

 

He nods slowly, rubbing the bridge of his nose and then turns very suddenly to look at her, eyes blazing in the distorted light, swallowing thickly.

 

The throb of his Adam’s apple is pulsing against the lamp- bright skin of his throat and she reaches a hand to him, lightly taking his fingers between her own, rubbing feeling back into the stiff, cold digits.

 

With a sharp intake of breath, she sees the half shuttered gaze descending over his eyes, the cloudy, faraway look that she has come to dread and squeezes his hand tighter.

 

There is something there that he has not told her, and try as she might, she cannot figure it out by herself.

 

‘Don’t hide, Jamie. Please,’ her voice wobbles in the quiet, sparks of salt pricking at her eyelids, holding his eyes with hers. ‘Whatever it is. Please. Trust me.’

 

He swallows painfully and looks away into the depths of the broch, trying to gather himself.

 

When he looks back, it is all still there, as much as she hates that she can see it- confusion, rage, embarrassment, humiliation and the vestiges of a rage long supressed.

 

He breathes through his nose for a long moment; deep, exasperated and full of pain.

 

‘I received a phone call on Tuesday, from Mr Piper; my old English master at Ardvreck. He… He wants us to send William there next September. Said it would be good for the lad, but I… After my brother Willie and... The things that were done… That were said…’

 

‘It might have changed,’ she interrupts, hating the sickening thud of understanding that has landed in her stomach at his words.

 

‘It’s been so long since you left and the masters will be different now, the boys will be different. Times change, surely…’

 

‘Aye’, he breaks in, the word so quiet that she thinks at first that she hasn’t heard him.

 

‘Aye, _different._ The ghosts will still be there though. Ye can count on them no’ changing.’

 

‘What do you mean?’ The question feels hopelessly inadequate in light of the current situation.

 

He grimaces, looking down at their joined hands before fixing her with a brief, direct look.

 

‘What I mean Claire, is that those… Those men whom I called ‘sir’ for five years o’ my life would often take boys tae bed wi’ them. They were old army men for the most part, generals an’ a few sergeant majors discharged wi’ the VC. Many o’ them were still shakin’ wi’ palsy from their memories o’ the trenches or India but that didna seem to stop them.’

 

He breaks off and finally holds her gaze, blue eyes pleading with her to understand what he could not say aloud.

 

‘They’d take a boy or two tae bed, when the need arose for them. Corner us when we were shivering in our night things out of dorm when we shouldna ha’ been, on the way tae the privy an’ tap us on the shoulder. Tell us that they had sweeties in the duty master’s flat, that if we were good boys, we’d get some… No lad o’ that age can resist sweeties. Their hands were soft an’ warm and flabby always, an’ ye could feel the lust heaving off them in waves, the shadow of their cock bulging against their trousers…’

 

He breaks off, making a disgusted Scottish noise at the back of his throat. She wants to pull away, wants it not to be true, but knows it is, wishing that it wasn’t.

 

‘But… They didn’t… Not to you… Why didn’t you tell someone? Write to your Da? Surely…’

 

From what she has heard Jamie and Jenny say about Brian and Ellen Fraser, they’d been kind, open, loving parents, willing to do anything and everything in their power for the wellbeing of their children.

 

A small, humourless laugh brings her back with a start.

 

‘Write? My Da was still grievin’ for Mam and Willie and the stillborn bairn when it started, _Sassenach_. His health was failing at the time an’ I barely wrote tae him until I was allowed home for the funeral.’

 

‘What about Jenny?’ The question comes out more of a squeak.

 

‘Jenny?’ His eyes widen at the mention of his sister; a small, sad smile flickering at the corner of his mouth.

 

‘Jenny could barely look at me for a long time after. It… It was only when I went away tae France when I was twelve, tae stay wi’ Cousin Jared, did she start tae write.’

 

_Oh love._

_Oh Jamie, why didn’t you tell me?_

Her heart aches in silent pain for him and his replies.

 

‘ _Because I couldn’t. Because I was afraid and ashamed, and a miserable coward who couldna bear the thought of ye leaving me because of it.’_

_I’d never leave you my love. Ever._

Very slowly, she tightens her grip on his hand, drawing him close.

 

He comes just as slowly, pillowing his head against her breast.

 

Outside the open door, the sky is beginning to lighten, incremental flecks of pink and grey stabbing through the slowly lightening darkness.

 

‘Thank you for telling me,’ she says quietly, carding her numb fingers through his hair, feeling his body relax completely against her own, slowly and completely surrendering his exhausted mind to sleep.  

 

‘Aye, lass’, he murmurs after a while, the words thick and slurred with a mixture of what she can guess is exhaustion, drink and emotion.

 

‘Hold your wheesht now, _a leannan._ Just bide. Be wi’ me, Claire. Please.’

 

‘You bloody Scot,’ she mutters in reply, the words thick and heavy with unshed tears as she presses a kiss deep in his hair, now fully recovered from the barber’s shears. ‘Do you think I’d ever leave you now?’  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please feel free to read and review!
> 
> Comments, suggestions, questions, constructive criticisms etc are like chocolate to my brain!
> 
> Much love and enjoy x


	18. A Daughter's Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> September, 1945
> 
> Johnny McPherson comes to Lallybroch to ask for Jamie and Claire for their blessing for his marriage to Faith

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to everyone for all your kind words regarding this story, you have absolutely no idea what it means to me to know that this AU is resonating with so many different people. 
> 
> Your feedback and support means the absolute world to me and I cannot thank you enough for sticking with this!

_It’s September 1942._

_He only knows this because the prisoners have been set the task of digging a trench to store potatoes for the winter; day after day standing in freezing black mud, their spades rusting in arms too weak to hold them._

_The sky is a dull, slate grey, a weak wisp of white sun peeping desperately between the clouds._

_The spade thuds through his hands again, frozen fingers that still tremble with the last vestiges of camp fever from the year before sliding over the mud caked wood._

_He can feel their eyes on him._

_The overseer’s gaze boring into the back of his shaved skull, cool, grey eyes_ _gleaming beneath the peaked SS cap, shaping him up, measuring out his input into the work._

_Too little and he’ll be thrown out of line and dragged towards a grove of poplar trees that stood on the hill behind the camp._

_It wouldna be so bad, he thinks, keeping his eyes down on the slick and slap of potato mould cutting through the rusted edges of the spade._

_He’d be able to see his Mam, if he went now._

_Be able to feel her arms around him as he had done so often when he was a lad._

_Be able to…_

_From somewhere to his left, he sees a scabbed hand dart out and grab at one of the potatoes in the open sack that were waiting to be tipped into the trench._

_Huge, pale, haunted eyes hold his for just a moment, a trail of anguished, hopeful spittle dribbling from a dark, scabbed mouth._

_Andy Blair, he thinks, a dull sense of foreboding creeping into his stomach as he gropes for the memory._

_Private._

_Nineteen._

_Joined up in Fort William._

_A nervous handshake at the recruitment desk, soft grey eyes dancing back to the mother with a peep of blonde curls from a soft, felt hat, winking at the little girl who had clung to her mother’s hand, hiding her face away in the dark safety of the skirts when Jamie had stood to greet her brother. Grey eyes that would soon sink into tight, emaciated skin, where every bone was visible._

_A Dhia, not again!_

_He shakes his head in silent warning before dropping his gaze back to his own work, but the boy doesn’t catch on. The grey, haunted eyes gleam as they take in the potato, tossing it up and down in one hand._

_‘Drop it! For the love of God man, is your life no’ worth more?’_

_The potato slips to the ground with a silent, echoing thud that makes the guard who is inspecting the sack, snap his head snap up, eyes raking wildly through the line for the thief._

_Halt! Alle Gefangenen! Arbeit abbrechen!‘_

_The curt, sharp German cuts through the lines like taut wire._

_He feels rather than sees the boy slink back, smells the fear-sweat pulse off his body in waves and knows that he has to act._

_‘_ _Wer hat das gemacht?‘ The rough, hard words slide through their hearts like hot knives._ _‘Wer von euch dreckigen Schotten hat das getan?’_

_His heart is thundering somewhere in his ears, but he doesn’t feel it._

_Only presses the soft thud of naked skin where the cross of his rosary has hung for so long in reassurance, the whispered prayer that he’d said every morning before battle, coming softly to his frozen lips._

_Blessed Mother, do not forget me._

_If I forget you, do not forget me._

_Please do not forget me_

_‘I did.’_

_Despite themselves, several heads whip round, eyes wide and mouths agape in wordless reproach._

_From somewhere in the crowd, he thinks he can see Joe Fraser standing there, shaking his head in wordless horror, but he can’t be because Joe is dead._

_Joe died in his arms a year ago, begging for his soul to be remembered to Kirsty and his weans, his grave behind the huts marked with a simple, wooden cross._

_Blessed Mother, do not forget me._

_‚Du?‘_

_A guard walks slowly through the lines towards him, shadowed eyes half hidden by the peaked cap flicking over him. The hot, acidic tang of cigarette smoke takes in the tattered remnants of his uniform without comment, the long, blue look that is smarting through eyes that itch with exhaustion, the gaping sores at the corners of his lips._

_He nods slowly, barely seeing the guard’s companions coming up beside him, clamping his teeth on his lip until he tastes blood as the rough weight of hands pinoin his arms behind his back._

_Barely feels the blanket that he is thrown onto, the cramped, fetid darkness of the cells in the punishment bunker, a torrential rush of ice cold water filling his lungs, shoving him back, choking him…._

_Let me, O Blessed Mother, see those I love and long to hold again, safe from this._

_Blessed Mother, please do not forget Claire or Faith or Brianna, or William. See them safe, I beg of ye._

_Do not forget me._

* * *

 

‘Da? Da! Wake up! Please wake up!’

 

A hand on his shoulder; hot and shaking skin digging into the thin fabric of his shirt, pulling him back.

 

‘Da, ye’re scairin’ me!’

 

_Brianna._

He must have fallen asleep- lulled back into the dark world of dreams by a late September bloom of heat that has taken everyone by surprise.

 

‘Da?’

 

He blinks thickly, slowly coming back to himself.

 

He’s sitting on the old, wooden bench on the terrace, white paint flaking between his fingers, the soft fragrance of his Mother’s rose-briar wafting through the late morning air.

 

Brianna’s eyes are wide and scared, glowing out of a flare of a summer freckles, her lips white with fear.

 

Carefully, the hand that has gripped his shoulder relaxes and she pushes away from him, squatting on her haunches at his feet. A quiet, solemn look that is so alien to her blazing Mackenzie looks has graced her face- a look that tries to tear his heart in two.

 

The fire that he remembers is still there, but it is quenched somewhat, guarded carefully away in some secret place that he does not have access to.

 

It is a long moment before she can find the courage to speak.

 

‘Were ye…  Were ye there?’

 

_There._

_There, in that agonising stillness that he thought he would go mad in; his whole body shaking so violently that every breath was an agony of endurance. There, curled foetal-like under the thin, coarse fibres of the blanket that slid through his trembling, frigid fingers- its’ cover a scant comfort to the endless, compulsive shivering that came with every blast of icy water._

_There, in the exercise yard, watching through exhausted eyes as yet another outspoken prisoner was dragged away to the copse above the camp and met with a bullet to the back of the head._

_There._

 

The question hangs in the soft, still air for a moment before crashing to the ground, never to be asked again.

 

_Dhia, how much does she know?_

_How much has his absence, has the war ripped away from her?_

_From all of them?_

Blue eyes blaze back into his, pleading with him not to hide.

 

‘Aye,’ the response is swallowed in the back of his throat.

 

‘I’d fight them, if I could. If I were a boy an’ old enough tae go, I would,’ the words are low and fierce in her mouth, squeezing at his heart.

 

‘Nay _mo leannan,’_ he says quietly, a small smile catching at the corners of his lips at the thought of Brianna as a boy, reaching out a hand to cup her cheek.

 

 Her gaze full of loving fury for things that she cannot change, bright blue eyes that hold just a hint of grey at their centre gazing unblinkingly into his.

 

There is a flicker of something in those eyes, he sees, lightly pressing her cheek with his thumb.

 

‘I wouldna… I wouldna want ye there, lass.’

 

_Gods, no. The thought of any of his children, any of his loves, being subjected to that is more than he can bear._

 

‘I couldn’t stand the thought of any of ye seeing what the Germans were capable of, then. What drives…’ An explosive breath shakes through him as he tries to marshal his thoughts, gazing over her head towards the wizened ash tree, the small loch and then further still onto the purple carpeted moor beyond. ‘What drives man tae do such things, tae think sae little of their fellows.’

 

She nods slowly, an understanding that is far beyond her years glimmering in her eyes.

 

A loose curl twists round the index finger of her right hand.

 

Beyond the garden boundary he hears the faint, tuneful clucking of a mother moorhen on the small loch, an unasked question hanging still and heavy in the silence.

 

‘Is there something that ye wish to tell me, _mo chuisle_?’

 

She looks up sharply, eyes shining.

 

‘How did ye ken?’

 

A small chuckle catches in his throat at her expression; quizzical, lost, exasperated and deeply loving all at once.

 

‘I’m your father, _m’eudail._ I ken everything.’

 

He gives her a lopsided grin and she grins back, swallowing visibly, her hands fast and trembling in her lap.

 

‘Johnny McPherson’s come. He’s here tae… Tae ask ye…’ She pauses for a moment, keeping her eyes firmly on her lap.

 

‘He’s here tae ask ye tae give your blessing so he can marry Faith and I… I dinna want him to. I said as much tae him when he got here, but he wouldna listen an’ Faith… Faith’s afraid, I can see, anyone wi’ eyes can see, but I ken that she willnae say no…’

 

The words tumble out of her like water from a broken dam, her eyes glistening with sudden tears.

 

_Oh, mo nighean ruaidh!_

Wordlessly, he gathers her into his embrace, the weight of her flooding through his arms.

 

She clings back, nestling her face in the crook of his shoulder, the span of her shoulders heaving silently under his palm.

 

‘It’s not just Faith, is it, _mo chiride?’_ He murmurs, holding her fast.

 

A quick, wordless shake of her head, hair curling against his cheek and he slowly pulls her away from him.

 

‘It’s… It’s…’ She swallows thickly, the quick dismissal of ‘nothing’ falling silently away as she scrapes a hand over her streaming eyes.

 

‘It’s Faith an’ it’s Willie going away to school and…. I dinna…. I dinna want tae be left behind!’

 

At her words, he remembers Claire’s voice in the still, dark quiet of the broch; the hot, fierce exclamations as Brianna had clung to him on the moor as she had shown him her scarred palms.

 

_‘She shouldn’t waste her potential here at Lallybroch.’_

 

_‘I can’t go back, Da! I can’t!’_

Very slowly, he takes her hands in his, kneeling at her feet and squeezing her fingers lightly between his own.

 

Her eyes shine down at him, lower lip quivering.

 

‘Ye are one of the bravest lassies I know, Brianna.’ The words are slow and careful, making her grimace and try to squirm away.

 

‘And whatever you want to do with your life, be it going to university, following your Mam’s footsteps in the stillroom or painting with your wee brushes, I will always support ye. Your Mam and I will always support you. Never forget that. You have such talent, _mo leannan._ Ye shouldna waste it.’

 

‘You will? You mean it? You really, truly mean it?’

 

Her voice is breathless, her eyes huge; great, shining pools of love and hope and he nods again; pressing a soft, chaste kiss on her knuckles.

 

‘Aye, I do., _mo chuisle_. Now, let’s go and see if I can make any sense of Johnny and your sister, shall we?’

 

The face splitting grin that she gives him is enough to warm his heart until the end of time.

 

* * *

 

 

A strangers’ hat and coat hang on the carved, wooden pegs by the back door, dark felt and heavy fabric suffocating in the heat.

 

The soft purr of voices, the rush of water into the kettle to boil their precious weekly ration of tea, the hum of the AGA, greet them as Jamie and Brianna make their way to the kitchen.

 

Johnny is sat at the kitchen table with Willie; his son explaining the more delicate arts of building a tree house. Faith sits at her usual place, quietly twisting her engagement ring round and round her finger, so quiet and still that it feels as if she is hardly there at all. She looks much younger than seventeen, the sight of those wide, Mackenzie blue eyes, the soft, snub nose, ripping Jamie’s heart open afresh.

 

_To lose her!_

_But she must go, someday._

_Despite all his best intentions, he knows that she must._

Her eyes dart up at their entrance and back again, widening at the sight of Jamie. Brianna runs to her sister, enfolding her into a fierce embrace.

 

Claire is at the AGA, fingers drumming tunelessly against the sideboard as she waits for the kettle to boil, Bran stretched out like a great, shaggy hearthrug at her feet. At the soft thud of the door shutting, she turns sharply, the dog waking with a soft ‘whuff’ of surprise, Claire’s whisky coloured eyes that he loves so well softening at the sight of them, flickering to Faith and Johnny and back again.

 

‘ _Do something. Please.’_

Jamie nods, clearing the soft catch of blood and phlegm at the back of his throat with a soft cough.

 

Johnny looks up with a start, eyes widening.

 

Jamie had thought the lad pale already, the grey eyes wide above high cheekbones huge in the dim summer light.

 

Flustered, he scrambles to his feet, nearly upsetting his tea things; a thin, pale hand outstretched in awkward greeting.

 

The skin under Jamie’s touch is thin, soft and lightly freckled as he takes the offered hand. A scholar’s hand, unused to physical labour bar those granted by the nib of a pen or a typewriter’s keys.

 

‘Pleased… Pleased to make your acquaintance again, Mr… I mean, Captain Fraser, sir…’

 

The words come out in a tumbled rush and Johnny breaks his gaze to glance helplessly at Faith, the tips of his ears blushing furiously pink.

 

Jamie nods slowly, ignoring the flustered blustering of titles, thinking of all the young recruits who he had seen pass through the army. Green, gangly boys still wet behind the ears, long-limbed, awkward bodies soon moulded into lean, lithe machines ready to kill or be killed on the battlefields of France.

 

Thinking of the boy whose body he had held in the dank, fevered darkness of the huts, the weight of the lad’s head resting heavily in his arms, a lad that could not have been more than sixteen.

 

Sees once more the boy whose final moments had been haunted by an ancient, accepting look as he had held his head fiercely and hoped that if he could not ease the pain, he could at least bring the lad some semblance of comfort.

 

‘I came tae ask ye….’ Johnny stammers to a stop, his eyes fixed resolutely at his feet, the words that he’s going to say lost in the silence.  

 

‘Aye? Why don’t ye come to my study and ask me there, lad?’ He glances at Claire who nods silently.

 

Wide, grey eyes glance sharply up at him.

 

Across the table, Faith’s head comes up, her eyes huge and questioning.

 

‘Ye too, _mo cholom geal,_ if ye’d like,’ he extends a hand to Faith from across the room and she nods slowly, disentangling herself from Brianna.

 

‘Aye, Da,’ she says slowly, her voice little more than a whisper in the quiet. Brianna swivels round on her haunches to watch them, a silent question blooming on her lips.

 

Faith shakes her head silently in reply and the younger girl nods, biting her lower lip in worry.

 

‘I’ll come.’

 

* * *

 

 

The sun’s shadows are long and dark as they enter his study.

 

Out of the corner of his eye, Jamie sees Johnny relax almost instantly as he finds himself among leather and ink, vellum and oak.

 

Bran has padded in with them, as soft and as silent as a ghost, plumed tail swishing softly against the table leg, butting his head into Jamie’s midriff as he moves slowly to his desk, his fingers moving automatically to fondle with the large, silken ears.

 

The cut glass of the drinks cabinet that is tucked away in the corner of the room winks and glitters in the dusky light, some of Ellen Mackenzie’s watercolours that she had done as a teenager softly glowing from the walls.

 

Johnny’s eyes are huge as he takes in the dark furnishings, a finger running in slow reverence over the lines of leather-bound volumes. He nods his silent thanks as Jamie rummages for the key to the drinks cabinet and pulls out two cut glasses, the decanter and some 1932 single malt whisky; the soft song of the amber liquid against the glass twinkling in the quiet.

 

‘Take a seat, lad,’ Jamie hears himself say quietly, the words not sounding his own, raising his glass in welcome and nodding to the straight backed, oak chair with its’ carved Mackenzie crest, a stag’s head stood erect and eager.

 

Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Claire hovering in the doorway.

                                      

‘I didn’t think you wanted me,’ she murmurs, her breath smelling pleasingly of mint against his ear. Slowly, she wraps an arm around his waist, her eyes fixed on Johnny and Faith, still hovering by the door.

 

‘I canna do this alone, _mo Sorcha,’_ he whispers back, a smile lost in his proffered kiss, eyes flicking to Johnny and Faith, now sat before them. _Ye know I can’t._

 

Johnny’s eyes are wide as he takes in the broad-boned face before him, Faith’s flickering to her father and mother and back again, a sense of unease that he hates radiating off her in waves.

 

 ‘Tell me why you’re here, Johnny,’ Jamie says at last, the words fighting round the lump that has lodged itself in his throat.

 

The lad swallows thickly, glancing quickly at Faith who nods slowly; a small flicker of a smile quirking at her lips.

 

‘I wish… We wish tae ask for your blessing, sir. Ma’am,’ Johnny nods courteously to Claire, whose smile doesn’t quite reach her eyes.

 

Slowly, Jamie reaches for her hand; finding it cold and small beneath his own; thin, strong bones squeezing his own.

 

Faith’s eyes are wide and shining as he catches her gaze and without warning, the fragments of a memory float back to him when his eldest daughter had been little more than a bairn.

 

Remembers the hum of Claire’s voice softly crooning through the dusky evening silence of the house on one of their first evenings at Lallybroch, when the rooms had still been strange to him; spaces full of memories thought long forgotten. The rooms had been a mess of packing cases and trunks then, only the bare essentials found temporary homes, their lives still shaking in a sense of flustered upheaval.

 

Remembers pausing by the study door, the sharp tang of an autumn evening checking the cows still clinging to him to listen, his heart bursting with love for his wife, sat with her hair curled in beautiful, dark disarray about her face, her voice soft in the still strange words of her borrowed tongue to a tune that he couldn’t discern, Faith nestled on her lap, lisping in reply.

 

_‘A naoidhean bhig, cluinn mo ghuth_   
_Mise ri d' thaobh, O mhaighdean bhan_   
_Ar righinn oig, fas as faic_   
_Do thir, dileas fhein_   
_A ghrian a's a ghealaich, stuir sinn_   
_Gu uair ar cliu 's ar gloire_   
_Naoidhean bhig, ar righinn og_   
_Mhaighdean uasal bhan.’_

‘And you, _mo nighean ruaidh?_ Do you feel the same?’

 

The words feel strange in his mouth after the soft sweetness of the half-remembered lullaby, but he forces himself to say them nonetheless.

 

His daughter’s eyes shine back at him; love and anguish blazing in their hearts.

 

‘ _I’ve kent him like a brother for the whole of my life and I canna… I wouldn’t… I… I wouldn’t want…’_

‘I dinna ken, yet,’ she says at last, the words slow and careful. ‘But I could learn. I want tae learn tae love him, Da. Surely ye ken what that is?’

 

_Surely ye ken what that is?_

_He does._

 

Her eyes are deep and very blue as she tears her gaze away from him to Johnny, who nods an unspoken answer.

 

‘I ken how ye feel for your daughters, sir. I watched ye with Faith and Brianna and Willie when I was a wean and I swear to ye that I’ll do right by her. I’ll do whatever it is in my power to keep her safe and happy.’

 

_But will ye love her, lad?_

_Will ye cherish her for all that she is and all that she can give ye?_

Slowly, he breaks the earnest gaze of the boy before him and looks for Claire, standing as quiet and still as a naiad from the books of Greek myths that he’d read as a child.

 

His wife’s face is an unreadable, marble mask; only the faintest glimmer of light in her eyes telling him that she’s hearing the conversation at all.

 

‘Aye,’ Johnny’s answer is soft in the quiet.

 

‘Aye, sir, I will. I’ll give her all that I can, which isna much at the moment, mind; but it will be, soon. Faith’ll be able to continue her work at the hospital and…’

 

‘This isna about money or work, Johnny,’ Jamie cuts in at last, unable to bear it.

 

Unable to bear seeing Faith’s eyes wide and twisted with confusion as she tries to keep up with what’s happening. It’s going fast, far too fast and he cannot stop it, cannot shield her from its inevitable consequences as he had done so often when she was a child.

 

It is the same lost, confused look that she’d worn when Mr McAlister himself had brought her home from school one blustery day when she was nine, all bony arms and legs as she had run to Jamie’s arms and hid herself there as the master had asked for an audience with her parents about their daughter’s future and he can’t bear it.

 

‘ _She’s not like the other children, surely ye ken that.’_

_The master’s long, bony fingers had been steepled together, their tips pressing into his lower lips, dark eyes hooded and unreadable._

_‘How so?’ His daughter’s small, bony body had pressed close to his legs as he rose to stand behind her, the weight of her skull tucked deep against his midriff; bright, expectant eyes gazing up at him. He’d fought to keep his voice steady, eyes darting to Claire trying to pacify a squawling Brianna._

_‘She’s… Weel, I canna put this any kinder, but she’s slow. It may be the complications o’ her birth and such, but the school board and I…’_

_He had broken off and coughed delicately into his handkerchief in a manner that had made Jamie want to throttle him._

_‘How can I put this? She’ll ne’er amount tae much, will she?’_

_Slow._

_The word that every parent dreaded had thudded through the air with a dull, resounding clunk._

_And what would ye ken of her, Sir?_

_Have ye seen her exclaim over a nest of sparrow eggs or else name all of the trees up in the copse on the moor?_

_Have ye ever walked with her and taken the time to listen to her tell you everything she knows about the wild flowers that she sees?_

_He hadn’t said any of those things._

_Instead he had looked down at Faith, who was still trying to hide behind his legs, and quirked a smile for her wide, bright eyes and soft, trusting smile, nodding slowly. She looked anything but slow there; bonny and canty and braw and strong and so fiercely loving that often he thought that her heart would burst from the weight of it._

_‘Aye. Thank ye for your time then, sir. We’ll consider your proposal.’_

‘Da?’

 

The same trusting eyes are wide with questions now, flickering from Jamie to Claire and back again.

 

Slowly, he takes a sip of the whisky; the fiery liquid burning feeling back into his throat, steadying him.

 

From outside the study door, he can hear the soft scuffle of feet and Brianna’s voice raised in an inconspicuous stage-whisper, not in the least trying to be quiet; a slow smile tugging at the corners of his lips at the sound of their voices.

 

 _‘_ Hold your wheesht, Willie! They’ll hear us!’

 

‘And we dinna want that?’

 

‘No, ye clotheid! Now shove over, you’re standing on my foot…’

 

‘Aye, _mo leannan_. I heard ye,’ slowly, he breaks her gaze and fixes it instead on Johnny, swallowing back the smile, schooling his face into a mask of blank composure.

 

‘I talked tae your Father about this, Johnny,’ Jamie says slowly, watching the grey eyes widen in surprise.

 

The warmth of Claire’s hand on his shoulder makes him pause, looking up into his wife’s whisky coloured eyes that are soft and wide with love and worry, the creases around her eyes that he had not witnessed soft in the dusky light.

 

Her fingers close around his for just a moment, a small smile catching at the corners of her lips and he dips his head in reply, the unspoken question and its’ answer echoing in the silence.

 

‘ _Am I doing the right thing?’_

 

‘ _Yes.’_

‘Ye did? When? What… What did he say?’  

 

Jamie lowers the glass, considering Johnny over the rim. The boy has hardly touched his whisky, a sheen of sweat catching on his upper lip.

 

‘A few weeks ago. Dinna fash yourself lad. He agrees with me and thinks that you both,’ he nods to Faith, ‘should wait for a few years, make sure ye ken that you’re doing the right thing.’

 

The words hang in the silence for a moment crashing to the ground.

 

Faith’s eyes widen, then narrow, a muscle jumping in her throat.

 

‘A few years?’ She says at last, her voice ominously quiet, the outburst that he knows is coming terrifying in its’ intensity.

 

‘A few years?’ She asks again, her knuckles stark and white against the tables’ dark grained wood.

 

‘Da, I’m seventeen! The age for consent in this country is fourteen, or have ye and Tam forgotten that?’ Her eyes are wide and wild, darting from her parents to Johnny and back again.

 

‘Seventeen is no’ grown, Faith. No’ as long as ye live in my house,’ he strives to keep his voice civil, the words low and dark in his throat.

 

‘I saw boys die at the age of seventeen, _mo cholom geal_. Boys who were barely old enough to shave their whiskers, crying out in pain for their mothers as their guts spilled out before them. Boys in the camps shot in the back of the head for trying to get a bite tae eat…’

 

_A grey August day in ’42._

_A corpse laid out in the exercise yard, a corpse that only hours before had been the living, breathing soul of Private Andy Blair who had that morning told Jamie about his little sister, Morag and how when the war was over, he was going to use his army pension to try and send her to teacher-training college._

_A shaved head stained thick with scarlet blood, a handsome, country face with the ghosts of freckles spilling over a slightly beaked nose, blank, grey eyes wide and staring at a sky he could not see, a look of pained surprise glistening through wide, starved features beginning to settle as the rigor mortis began to set in._

_God rest ye, lad._

_The hot prickle of nicotine tainted breath at the back of his neck, setting the hairs on end, twisting his arm roughly behind his back in a blinding flash of agony._

_‘Verstehen Sie?’_

_And he had, despite himself._

_Despite every bone in his body screaming at him not to, he had understood and had loathed himself for it._

Hands grasped in his; a long, sobbing breath pulling through his tattered lung, softly holding him to the present.

 

‘It’s over, Da. Come back. Please come back.’

 

Faith is kneeling at his feet, her eyes swimming with unshed tears; a soft, sad smile tugging at her lips.

 

Slowly, he reaches a hand to her, cupping her cheek.

 

‘ _M’annsachd,’_ he whispers, the word choked in the silence.

 

_My blessing._

‘Ye won’t lose me, Da,’ she whispers, clasping his hands in hers, pulling her gaze away to Johnny who nods and swallows, sounding far older than a lass of seventeen.

 

‘That I promise you,’ she pauses, a small smile trembling at her lips, turning the large, beautiful eyes that he adores to Johnny.

 

‘And Johnny will stand by me. I know that.’

 

It is a while before he can trust himself to speak, his voice caught in the pit of his throat.

 

‘Aye,’ the word is husky, and he nods quickly, so she cannot see the hot, fast tears that stab at his eyelids.

 

‘Aye, I ken that, _mo chuisle._ I wish ye every happiness with him.’

 

She doesn’t reply, but pulls him into a tight embrace, burying her head in his shoulder, her words of thanks lost in the fabric of his jersey.

 

‘Thank you. Truly. Thank you, Da.’

 

He pulls her face closer to him as if she were a bairn of two or three and not nearly a woman grown of seventeen; the kiss on her cheek lingering long after his lips have left her skin.

 

‘ _Ye will always be my heart, Faith, wherever you go, wherever life takes you. Mo chiride. Never forget that. Ever.’_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please feel free to read and review!
> 
> Comments, suggestions, questions, constructive criticisms etc are like chocolate to my brain!
> 
> Much love and enjoy x
> 
> German translations: 
> 
> Halt! Alle Gefangenen! Arbeit abbrechen!‘ = Halt! All prisoners! Stop work!’ 
> 
> ‘wer hat das gerächt?’ = who did this?
> 
> ‘wer von euch drechigen Schotten hat das getan?’ = ‘which of you filthy Scotsmen did this?’
> 
> ‘Verstehen Sie?’ = ‘do you understand?’ 
> 
> English translation of Claire’s Gaelic lullaby (originally taken from the OST of Pixar’s Brave (2012)
> 
> ‘Little baby, hear my voice  
> I’m beside you, O maiden fair  
> Our young Lady, grow and see  
> Your land, your own faithful land  
> Sun and moon, guide us  
> To the hour of our glory and honour  
> Little baby, our young Lady  
> Noble maiden fair’


	19. Birthday Wishes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> October, 1945
> 
> On the morning of her fifteenth birthday, Brianna Fraser receives a letter that opens her future to opportunities that she never imagined were possible.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to everyone for all your kind words regarding this story, you have absolutely no idea what it means to me to know that this AU is resonating with so many different people.
> 
> Your feedback and support means the absolute world to me and I cannot thank you all enough for sticking with this!

The letters arrive on a blustery October morning, when the leaves are a crinkled carpet of tawny fire that crunches underfoot.

 

The sky is a fierce, dark grey, the clouds thick and squawling with the threat of rain; incremental patches of the palest blue peeping through at irregular intervals.

 

It is Brianna’s fifteenth birthday, but she does not wish to feel her age.

 

Their paper is the colour of off-cream, thick with dried ink, heavy with unknown secrets.

 

One is addressed to her Da; the black letters slanted across the paper’s grain, the cross and stars emblem of Ardvreck school that she’s seen on Alumni and OB correspondence hinting of secrets that are not hers to know.

 

Slowly, she shifts to the thicker of the two envelopes, fingers running loosely over the grains of paper, eyes widening as she takes in the post-mark.

 

A breath catches in her throat as she reads, her heart thundering somewhere in her ears. The postmark is from Glasgow, the loops and curves of the spidery, cursive handwriting making her name look strange even to her own eyes.

 

She’d sent the portraits, mere sketches really, to the University for consideration back in the heat of the summer; their lines whipped out in the garret, listening to the thrum of the house as her mother and Faith tended to her father in the worst moments of the fever. Tried to imagine him there, leaning over her shoulder, a small smile crinkling at the corners of his lips.

 

_‘You have such talent, mo leannan. Ye shouldna waste it.’_

 

She hadn’t expected a reply. Hadn’t expected the moments of life on the farm that she’s captured to be anything more than glanced at.

 

**Miss Brianna Ellen Beauchamp Fraser**

**Lallybroch House**

**Broch Mordha**

**Inverness**

**IV42 9JE**

 

Claire had left early that morning to tend to Lizzie McGillivray whose birth pains had begun, slowly meandering her way through the house to kiss each of her children.

 

Her fingers had lingered for a moment against the curve of Brianna’s skull, her touch tickling as her fingers brushed away a stray lock of hair to kiss the hidden birthmark behind her ear. Her breath had smelt of sleep and her father’s thick, heady musk clinging to her skin like a cloak.

 

_‘I’ll be back as soon as I can. If I’m not home by breakfast, make sure that Da takes Willie to school. There’s some willowbark in the stillroom chest that needs steeping for tea and if you could find some Scottish Flame Flower berries on your travels, I’d appreciate it.  I love you, my darling. Happy birthday.’_

_‘Love ye too, Mam.’_

_The words thick, drowsy, lost in the night._

The stairs creak as she climbs steadily up to the attics, the envelop trembling in her hands.

 

The passageway is dark and thick with sunlit shadows from the skylight when she enters, glowing against some of her grandmother’s later works.

 

A self-portrait done in pencil is framed by two stormy landscapes of Creag Pitirdh diving down into Loch Eil, the lines soft and blurred, the shadows merging, swooping into pools of dark and light.

 

Her grandmother’s face beams down at her; a young, sharp face with the bright, slanted Mackenzie eyes inherited by all her grandchildren. A soft, sad smile hovers on her lips, the hint of round, full breasts peeping at the bottom of the frame.

 

_Did she know, even then?_

_Was she aware as she sat at her easel, feeling the warm weight of new life kicking through her dress, that she would not see it grow?_

 

She is sad and pregnant and Brianna’s heart cracks in anguish for her; hot, fierce tears burning in her lashes for the grandmother that she had never known.

_‘There was internal bleeding in her womb,’ she had heard her mother say sadly when they had been up here together, years before._

_‘Brian, your grandda, called the midwife, but when one came, it was too late. From what your Da told me they could only save the bairn, and he only survived to be christened, poor mite.’_

_‘What’d they name him, Mam?’ The words had been thick in her throat, grief for a grandmother and an uncle that she’d never met raw against her heart._

_‘Brian, I think. After Grandda. Brian Robert.’_

_And Claire had smiled a little sadly and turned away to whatever their task had been, leaving the young Brianna to gaze and ponder the portrait, trying to find something of herself in this strange, young woman with the same soft eyes and the sad smile curling at her lips._

 

Slowly, she moves to the tattered, horsehair sofa, strewn with old blankets that still hold the ancient ghosts of wet dogs, picnics down at the loch shore or on the island with homemade bread, sticky jam made with Lallybroch strawberries and her mother’s chocolate cake.

 

Picnics that were the sound of her father laughing uproariously at a long-forgotten joke, the light catching at her mother’s eyes, Bran bounding into the murky black water after a stick. 

 

Rowing out to the island with Faith, Maggie, Young Jamie and Kitty in the ancient wooden boat with the creaking rollocks and pushing each other off into the water, splashing and laughing until their sides ached and they gasped for breath from the chill of it.

 

_Would such times ever happen again?_

_Or was she too old now, poised on the threshold of womanhood, desperately looking her shoulder into the eyes of a freckle faced child caught in the throes of a rose tinted childhood that now could never be?_

 

The thought is an ache in her throat and she scrabbles for the sofa, sinking gratefully into the musty richness of its’ leather folds.

 

Someone has let the chickens out, balls of tawny fluff melting in with the suns’ long shadows.

 

It would soon be time to pick this year’s apple crop; a time when everyone on the estate descended on the orchards to harvest and process the bounty in the few short weeks before winter’s bite truly set in. The brambles in the hedges are just beginning to ripen too; soft, purple sweetness exploding over tongues and dribbling through fingers, piled high on the back-kitchen table with a steaming vat of jam bubbling away in one of the ancient copper pans.

 

Soon be time to do all the things that she has taken for granted, things that are as much a part of life at Lallybroch as the cry of the grouse on the moors or the soft sharpness of the gorse in bloom and how long will she have to enjoy them now?

 

_Enough, Brianna._

 

_That’s quite enough._

Slowly, carefully, she runs her finger along the seal of the envelope and, pulling the letter free, begins to read.

 

* * *

 

 

**_‘Dear Miss Fraser,’_ **

****

**_‘I am writing to congratulate you on your entry to the Glasgow School of Art’s Prospective Student Summer Exhibition. Your work speaks of a maturity that is quite beyond your years and a love and knowledge of the Highland landscape that is, we feel, sadly lacking in the young. With this in mind, I, alongside my colleagues at the Art School, am delighted to offer you an Art School Exhibition, should you choose to accept it, which will come into effect next September._ **

****

**_If you do choose to accept this offer, your contract will be for three years, starting in September 1946.  In the meantime, I take the greatest of pleasures of cordially inviting you to our Residential Winter Art Courses, which take place over the course of three weeks from mid-November until early December._ **

****

**_With regard to the entries that you sent in, I feel that although your work does have good merit as it stands, with some guided tuition on the capturing of light and shadows, it really could be masterful. This is particularly true with the landscapes in your portfolio, but also with the self portrait of the man in uniform. I was not the only one in the room who stopped and looked at that one twice._ **

****

**_Who is the man?_ **

****

**_What or whom is he waiting for?_ **

****

**_As a father and an uncle who lost a son and a nephew in the last days of the war, I felt particularly moved by that study and beg you indulgence in asking whether you have a father in the armed forces and if so, what was his regiment?_ **

****

**_After considering your work and your personal credentials, one of my colleagues who I am in correspondence with from Edinburgh University found a mention of one James Alexander Malcolm Mackenzie Fraser. The Fraser that my colleague mentioned graduated from Edinburgh with a first in Classics and Theology in the Divinity Class of 1925 and later joined the army. Your father, perhaps? Have I, inadvertently, solved the mystery that I posed to you?_ **

****

**_I pray that you will forgive an old man’s musings, I am merely curious._ **

****

**_Please confirm, in writing, your acceptance of this offer to the above address and more information will be sent out to you shortly._ **

****

**_Yours faithfully,_ **

****

**_Professor John McKenna_ **

****

**_University of Glasgow_ **

****

**_(MA. MTH. Hons)_ **

****

It is a long while before she can breathe easily.

 

_To go away, to leave Lallybroch and all she knows for the winged buttresses and gabled ceilings of Glasgow’s cloisters?_

_To wake up to the rumble of traffic instead of the high, sweet song of the larks on the heather blazed moor and the rustle of dead leaves under her feet?_

_To never breathe the sweet, cold wind or feel it slice and slap against her cheek?_

_To leave her parents and Faith and William?_

 

_Could she trust herself to do such a thing?_

‘Brianna? Are ye up there, _mo chuisle_?’

 

The sound of her father’s voice echoing up the stairs brings her back.

 

Her knuckles are stark and white against the letter, the sharp, aching tingles of pins and needles shooting up from her feet.

 

Slowly, she stretches, her legs aching as they uncurl. The letter crumples in her fist and she stands a little shakily, blinking in the dim light as the room sways and rocks itself to rights.

 

‘I’m up here, Da!’ The words rasp against her throat, echoing in the dusky stillness, listening to the clunk and creak of feet on the bare wooden staircase.

 

His eyes are very wide and blue, face split with smiles as he takes her in.

 

‘Happy birthday, _mo nighean ruaidh_ ,’ he murmurs as she buries herself in his arms, drinking in his cool, sharp scent.

 

She wants to say, ‘thank you,’ and hug him and leave it at that, to let him have her for one more day, without the knowledge that she could leave.

 

But she knows too that that would be a betrayal. That out of all them, he has the right to know.

 

‘I’ve received a letter’, she murmurs after a little while, the words lost in the wool of his jersey. With the nib of her fingernail, she plucks at a loose strand, the coarse warmth of the wool twisting loose over her cuticle.

 

‘Aye?’ Slowly he draws her back; his smile crinkling at the corners of his mouth, the word a low rumble in his throat.

 

‘From the Glasgow School of Art. I sent some of my sketches; wee, bitty things, in for one of their summer competitions and now they’ve offered me a place on a residential program wi’ the possibility of going tae the university afterwards. I…’

 

‘That’s wonderful, _m’annsachd,’_ he interjects, reaching to cup her chin, the soft span of his palm warm against her skin.

 

‘Truly,’ the smile falters a little as she raises her eyes to meet his gaze, a shadowed something swooping through the deep, blue irises, tugging away the light.

 

‘Are ye truly happy for me, Da?’

 

‘Aye,’ he whispers slowly, after a moment, drawing her close.

 

‘Aye, I am, lass. It’s only…’

 

He stops abruptly, a deep, low breath echoing through his nose, the words that he wants to say dying in the stillness.

 

‘Will ye be happy there? Glasgow’s a fair size and it hasna the space of Lallybroch. There’s a danger that ye’d suffocate, I think.’

 

‘Suffocate?’ The word is an unconscious laugh in the back of her throat as she tries to smile for him.

 

‘Da, I’m in more danger of suffocating here, and ye ken that. Faith has the hospital and Johnny and William’s too wee to understand what he wants, but I…’

 

‘Ye need to do something,’ he finishes her thought before it’s even complete, slowly taking her hands in his, encasing her long fingers between rough, work worn palms.

 

She nods, holding the soft, blue look that matches hers exactly.

 

‘Isn’t that why you joined the army? Tae find a life for yourself?’

 

Something sparks in the deep, blue eyes at that; an almost imperceptible shiver coursing through him at her words.

 

Very slowly he draws away from her, the ghost of something that she can’t discern flickering over his face.

 

‘My reasons for joining up are mine alone, lass,’ he says finally, running a hand through his hair, looking desperately away from her and around the shadowed room.

 

‘There was naught holding me to Lallybroch then, or so I thought,’ the words are spoken more to himself then to her.

 

‘My parents were dead, Jenny was married and content at Balmachellan wi’ Ian. I wasna the rightful heir here, I hadna been brought up as such. It had always been Willie’s calling to take on the lairdship. The army gave me purpose, _a chuisle,_ ye must understand that.’

 

She nods silently, the name of her long-dead uncle sounding almost bitter in her ears.

 

‘This house could have gone under the hammer and there were times when I would have been grateful!’ The last word comes out in a desperate, barking laugh that sends a shiver down Brianna’s spine.

 

‘Grateful!’ A snort explodes out of him and he sighs painfully, shaking his head, slowly turning to face her, one arm reaching to draw her close.

 

‘I dinna want any of ye thinking that ye must go away for the sake of it, _mo nighean ruaidh,_ or that ye dinna have a place here,’ the words are aching with sadness, the creases on his brow gouged out like gullies of wet clay. ‘But if ye want tae go, I willnae stop ye.’

 

Standing on tip-toe, she kisses him, his fresh-shaved cheek rasping clean against her lips.

‘This will always be my home, Da,’ she whispers at last, drinking in his soft, sweet musk, losing herself in the safety that has been denied to her for so long. ‘Always.’

 

‘Aye, _mo chiride,’_ he murmurs, pressing his lips lightly against the crown of her skull.

 

* * *

 

 

The lamps are trimmed low in the drawing room that evening, the low hum of the gramophone and Harry Lauder’s cheery Edinburgh brogue rumbling through the cool lash of the rain all mingled with the whisper of Ellen Mackenzie’s rose briar. The moon has lifted away from the windows, casting the room in half-lit shadows.

 

The fire has been piled high, the soft hissing pop of peat crackling through the room, the flames sending strange, dark shapes flickering against the carved pillars draped with thistles and twisted antlers.

 

Jamie stares into the flames, stretching his stiff fingers against Bran’s head that is pillowed under his palm. A low, soft whine rumbles at the back of the dog’s throat as a rough tongue nuzzles against his master’s palm.

 

Outside, the wind lashes hard against the window and the hunting screech of an owl pierces the night. A moment of perfect silence and then somewhere across that dark expanse of heather and tussock grass, a mouse dies for its’ carelessness.

 

‘We’re ready!’ Faith’s voice rippling in from the kitchen brings him back to himself, just in time to see William barrel into the room, high as a kite at the chance of being allowed up so late; his hair caught in a fire-bright halo, making to tumble down onto the hearthrug.

 

Jamie reaches out to grip the bony wrist just in time before he tumbles over his feet and pulls him up short; the bright, whisky coloured eyes blazing, face flushed with excitement.

 

‘Easy, _mo bhalaiach,’_ he murmurs gently, a small smile quirking at the corner of his lips.

 

His son grins back at him and scrambles up onto his lap, tucking his head into his father’s breastbone.

 

A small, aching sigh pulls through his lungs at the sudden weight of his son against his chest, the knobs and bones and lines of wiry boyhood vanishing just for a moment into the soft, dependant flesh that he had held and loved on the eve of his departure to France.

 

‘Is it a good one, _mo mac?’_ His voice is little more than a whisper, the words lost in the dusky crown of his sons’ curls.

 

_A Dhia, how long has he yearned for an evening such as this?_

_How many times did he watch the shifting light from the rotten roof slats in the huts and send a desperate, broken plea to whichever God was listening to wish his children his every blessing on their birthdays?_

 

‘Aye,’ William murmurs back, shifting slightly into a more comfortable position, the press of vertebrae digging deep into his shirt. ‘The best ever, Da. Now that you’re back.’

 

_Now that you’re back._

_How many birthday suppers had Claire and the children sat through whilst he was away, the joy of the evening marred by the dark cloud of his absence, the empty chair at the head of the kitchen table a grim reminder of all he could not see?_

‘Are you ready in there? Hands off, missie!’ Claire’s voice, a laughing smile caught in every syllable, makes his heart sing.

 

‘Aye, we are!’ He replies, hugging William closer as Brianna tumbles into the room, her face glowing in the dusky light.

 

She curls up against the chair and he gathers her face in his hands; the bright blue eyes he shares with her blazing.

 

‘ _Co là breith sona dhut, mo nighean ruaidh,’_ he whispers, the tongue of his forefathers soft in his mouth, pressing a soft kiss against her brow, fingers reaching to trace the curve of her cheek.

 

‘ _Tapadh leat,_ Da,’ she murmurs in reply, dipping her head and winking at William, who grins toothily back, glancing up just in time to see Claire and Faith bearing in plates and knives and, pride of place, a cake that is complete with fifteen candles.

 

Bran’s ears prick up at the sudden commotion and lets out a low, rumbled ‘whuff’, yellow eyes gleaming.

 

William claps his hands in delight and Jamie grins at Claire, whose hair is a tangled mess of dusky darkness, the slightest of silver threads just visible at her temples, whisky coloured eyes shining.

 

_‘Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday, dear Bri-anna! Happy birthday to you!’_

Brianna’s smile is radiant as she scrambles to her feet to meet the cake, dishevelled plaits swinging and, pushing William off his lap, Jamie rises slowly to find his wife.

 

She comes slowly, carefully, eyes wide and full of love and life, slipping one arm around his waist, pulling him close.

 

‘How did ye do it?’ The question is low with wonder.

 

The last time that he’d seen such a spread was his last night in Blighty before deployment, seven years ago.

 

‘I have my ways,’ she replies; a small and decidedly saucy smile twinkling at her lips.

 

‘Aye’, he replies, unable to stop himself from grinning in reply as they take in the children marvelling over the cake. ‘I suppose ye do, _Sassenach_.’

 

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ She murmurs back, a teasing lilt caught in her voice.

 

‘Nothing, he shakes his head, forcing the encroaching shadows away. ‘Just a foolish thought.’

 

‘Don’t think it then,’ she says quietly, pillowing her head in the pit of his shoulder blade, a breath of contentment escaping her lips. ‘Not tonight.’

 

‘No,’ he agrees, turning back to the room to feel Brianna press a warm napkin with a slice of cake in his hands; the soft, thick raspberry jam oozing from the middle.

 

‘Shall we join them?’ Her eyes are bright and lovely, flicking from him to the tableau of sticky, chocolate coated fingers, Brianna’s laugh ringing through the room and back again.

 

‘Aye, _mo chiride,’_ he murmurs back, taking her arm firmly inside his own. _‘_ I rather think we shall.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please feel free to read and review!
> 
> Comments, suggestions, constructive criticisms etc are like chocolate to my brain!
> 
> Much love and enjoy x


	20. Honor Praemium Virtutis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The arrival of a letter from Ardvreck Prep School forces Jamie to come to terms with some unpleasant memories from his childhood and make a decision about his son’s future.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 20 is here at last! 
> 
> Thank you so much to everyone who has taken the time to read and review this story- your feedback and support mean the world to me!
> 
> Honor Praemium Virtutis is the motto to Ardvreck Preparatory School

The letter had arrived a week ago and it is only now that Jamie Fraser is finding the time and energy to open it and persue its contents.

 

His eyes ache with tiredness and he has to drag a weary hand back across his face, blinking hard, the action stinging in the dim light.

 

On his desk, the amber jewels of an undrunk whisky bottle glint in the shadows, taunting him.

 

Without warning, he remembers a conversation that he’d had with Jenny in this room, when he’d come back to Lallybroch, fresh on compassionate leave from Sandhurst, to try and put Brian Fraser’s and the estate’s accounts in order.

 

_They’d been standing by the desk, trying not to look at the empty, wingbacked chair that until so recently had been full of the bearlike presence of their father._

_The room had still smelt of him, the ghosts of strawdust, whisky and kine clinging to every surface._

_A lopsided clay pot made by Jenny standing on the desk that had held his coveted fountain pen that was only used to sign farm records, birth and death acknowledgments, rent agreements and little else._

_One of their mother’s sketches of her children when they were bairns, Jamie sandwiched on the rug between his siblings, an old dog whom he could not remember the name of, lolling out his tongue, all three of them gappy toothed and grinning through the swift, deft pencil strokes._

_An empty bottle of Glenfiddich 1908 that rang when Jamie had flicked his fingers against the glass, chiming through the dusty silence._

_‘He drank, ye ken,’ the words had been spoken without emotion, their sentiment dull and lifeless as Jenny had stood by the cold fireplace, hugging herself in the final bursts of heat from the hearth that still smouldered from their father’s final fire._

_Jamie had nodded once, unable to keep still._

_It had been a mindless, restless pacing, up and down and up and down the room, picking things up that, had Brian Fraser been alive, he would never had dared to do, the stiff fingers of his bad hand tapping out a tuneless tattoo of agitation._

_He had barely spoken to his father since Willie and Mam died._

_Had barely spoken to Jenny until Cousin Jared had written to him in his final year at Ardvreck, after he’d passed the entrance exam to go to Gordonstoun and offered him a summer in Paris, his first time abroad, away from the stillness and sadness of Lallybroch._

_It hadn’t surprised him then and as he had stood there in the quiet, he’d remembered the night that he’d arrived back at Lallybroch for Willie’s funeral._

 

_Remembered curling deep in his childhood bed, burying his face in the soft, hot pillow that was already soaked with tears, shoulders heaving with after-sobs, everything cold and wet and lifeless, listening to the thud of feet on the stairs, the echo of voices on the landing._

 

_Remembered the sound of his father’s raised voice, the words thick and slurred, matched word for word by his Mother, a Mackenzie through and through, a cold seething anger flashing through her every word that had cut him to the bone._

_‘Ye canna do that tae him, Brian! He’s just a bairn!’_

_‘A bairn who is now my heir! Though God kens… God kens how I’ll make him fit tae be laird o’ Lallybroch. He needs tae do his duty, mo chiride…’_

_‘Don’t call me that! Don’t… Don’t you dare!’_

_‘Ellen…’_

_And then his mother’s voice taking on a tone that he had never heard her use, the Gaelic singing in a weak, pleading keen that had scared him more than listening to her spit fire._

_‘I’ve already lost one son to your desires to keep this place. I willnae… I canna lose another. I canna lose Jamie to ye, Brian. Please, an duine aice. Please. For the love that ye bear me, give him more time.’_

_And Jamie had buried further and further under the coverlet, wishing the voices away, wishing that any moment now, he would hear the soft click of the bedroom door opening. Would feel the mattress sag and Willie’s thin, wiry body bury under the blankets with him, blotting out his tears, drawing him close._

_‘Dinna pay them any heed, a_ _bràthair._ _‘Specially no’ Da. Mam’s just got her blood up and Da… Weel…  They dinna mean anything by it, I promise ye.’_

_But then the memory had faded, and he had found himself standing in his father’s study shaking with the force of new revelations, that were not new at all._

_‘How did ye ken?’_

_The question had been barely a breath._

_Jenny had shaken her head mutely, sparks of silver pricking at the corners of her eyes, hugging herself further and further into the shadows._

_When her voice had come, it had been a grey, caught whisper, barely audible above the whisper of their mother’s rose briar._

_‘I… I found him, mo bhalaiach. Sittin’ here in the dark, the gloamin’ thick aroon’ the windows. He stank o’ the drink, I could smell it as soon as I walked into the room._

 

_'His eyes were bloodshot an’ couldna focus. When I tried to take the bottle from him… He… He… He roared at me… An’…’_

_Her lower lip had started trembling dangerously then and he had stopped his pacing, moving swiftly and silently to enfold her in a deep embrace, the weight of her silent sobs for the father that they had loved and lost aching against his chest._

_‘It’s alright Jenny, mo chiride. It’s alright.’_

_And Jenny had sniffed and hiccoughed before pulling out of his arms, the eyes that matched his own exactly blazing with self-defiance._

_‘He called me a hoor Jamie! He didna recognise me! Just swung the bottle oot o’ my grip and…’_

_Jen… A pluithair… Why didn’t ye tell me? Why didn’t ye say something, ye clot?_

_And Jamie remembers standing there by the desk, coming back to himself, forcing the memories back. Remembers trying to reconcile the picture of the man that Jenny painted as their father with the one that he thought he knew._

 

Outside the window, the cold, grey stars wink and glitter against an inky sky, winking beningly back at him and for a moment he thinks that he is a bairn of three or four again. That he is feeling the warmth and comfort of Brian Fraser’s coat in better times, the heady smell of cow and horse and heather that had clung to the thick fabric, now claimed by Faith as her own, as his father had taken him and Jenny and Willie out to check the cows on a moonlit night during the harvest season.

 

_‘That’s Orion, mo mac. D’ye see his quiver? Look, just there, above the trees…’_

He’d often look for Orion during the long and bitter winter nights at Oflag VII-C, straining aching, exhausted eyes through the rotten beams of the huts to find the three bright stars of the huntsman’s belt. Would whisper his Hail Mary as the moon slipped out from behind a cloud; hoping, praying that Claire and the children could hear him. That part of his prayers could be heard back at Lallybroch.

 

The crisp yellow paper, complete with the Ardvreck school insignia is crumpled in his fist, the words that he wishes are not the truth ringing in his ears.

 

**Dear Mr Fraser. (STOP) Re the recent conversation about your son William. (STOP) Alexander. (STOP) Beauchamp. (STOP) Fraser. (STOP) The school would be delighted. (STOP) To host. (STOP) Yourself. (STOP) Your wife and child. (STOP) if you would. (STOP.) kindly pay an informal visit. (STOP) At your own convenience (STOP). Eagerly awaiting your reply. (STOP) Alexander Fleming. (STOP). Master of Admissions. (STOP.)**

_At your convenience._

 

The cool politeness of the words makes him want to laugh aloud, because it will never be convenient.

 

Not to him.

 

Not after everything that has happened.

 

Not after all the shadows, the ghosts that continue to haunt his every thought about that school.

 

_Not after…_

_Sitting on the musty, horsehair sofa, watching Badger’s yellow eyes gleaming out of a black mask, the words that even now, thirty-three years later, still hit him with all the dull, blinding intensity of a gunshot._

_Hearing, but not truly taking in the words, his eyes only for the blazing crown of curls, the slightly snub nose, the piercing blue-grey eyes shining out of a freckled, mud stained face split with grins as he had pulled up out of a rugby scrum, face blazing in the sinking, firelit sun._

_Curled up in his dormitory bed, clinging monkeylike to his brother’s shivering frame under their mound of blankets ferreted from Jamie’s bed, feeling the rapid rise and fall of his chest, the aching shivers not stopping the brave, hopeful expression glowing out of those wide, over-bright slanted eyes._

_‘ I’ll be better before ye know it, Jamie. Dinna fash yourself.’_

_Willie…_

_A Dhia, Willie!_

_Gods, what would I give to have ye here, to hear your council, to ken how it should be done?_

‘Jamie?’

 

The sound of the study door clicking shut.

 

A brisk, cool gust of air from the passage.

 

Claire must have reached for him in the quiet of the laird’s bed and not found him. Her hands are soft and work-worn as they travel slowly down his arms, long fingers entwining themselves in his palms, the nuzzle of a chin deep in the pit of his shoulder blade.

 

As he stands there, he feels her reach up on tiptoe, a breath expanding and contracting against his spine, brushing her lips against the crown of his skull.

 

They stand there, motionless for a time, watching the dip and sway of the moon slide out from behind a cloud against the wizened ash tree; a perfect stream of white light puddling in the shadows of the witches’ pool.

 

‘Tell me?’

 

Her hands grip his elbow, the whisper of her hair rippling against his jaw. She smells of mint and sleep, her fingers a selkie’s touch against his skin.

 

‘Aye,’ he whispers quietly, slowly turning on the spot to meet her, enfolding her gently in his arms, the crumpled paper plunged deep in the depths of his palm.

 

‘Ardvreck,’ he swallows thickly and she nods, whisky eyes glowing in the dim light.

 

‘They want us tae go wi’ William, for an informal visit.’

 

‘Do you think you can?’

 

Her voice is little more than a whisper, a breath of a question.

 

‘Well I ken you do’, he says, a small smile creeping across his lips, despite himself. ‘You’re thinking so hard that ye could wake the dead if ye so chose.’

 

Through the softness of the night, he hears the breath of her laughter, the whisper of the wind through the wizened ash tree.

 

‘No, I mean it. Really. I don’t want you thinking that we should send him there because you went… Because….’

 

Whatever else she is going to say hangs silently in the air for a moment before crashing to the ground, splintering at their feet, never to be uttered again.

 

‘I ken what ye mean, _mo Sorcha.’_

_Because of Willie._

_Because of all that happened there._

‘But…’

 

The rest of his sentence falls short, the words that he has rehearsed for hours, numbly refusing to be set free.

 

‘Yes?’

 

Slowly, she twists round in his arms so that she’s facing him, her hands reaching to cup the broad planes of his jaw, her fingers flying over his cheekbones.

 

‘I think we should go, the three of us. I dinna ken why and part o’ me doesna want tae even think about the place, but as ye said…’

 

‘I’ll be with you,’ she interjects fiercely, eyes suddenly bright and blazing in the dim light. ‘And Willie and William. You won’t be alone, love. I promise.’

 

An involuntary shiver shudders down his spine at her invocation of his dead brother’s name, but he shakes it off and, pulling Claire close, cards his fingers slowly through her birds’ nest of curls.

 

‘Thank ye, _mo nighean don,’_ he murmurs at last.

 

Outside, the sky is beginning to lighten, night’s inky carpet slowly softening to a light, shining grey shot through with the incremental flickers of a pale, pink dawn.

 

‘We should go to bed’, Claire murmurs into his chest, the words thick and heavy in the fabric of his jersey, as she lifts her eyes to the dawn outside.

 

‘Aye’, he agrees, somewhat ruefully. He cannot remember the last time that he stayed up all night. ‘We should. Thank you _.’_

Slowly, he takes her hands in his; lightly cradling the small, thin bones that hide such strength that he has never failed to marvel at and presses his lips to her knuckles.

 

‘Truly, Claire _._ Thank you.’

 

* * *

 

One week later

‘We’ll be fine Mam. _Really._ Dinna fash yourself.’

 

It’s early morning, the suns’ rays not quite reaching the kitchen windows.

 

Claire stands before her teenage daughters in front of the kitchen dresser, arms folded, surveying them with the critical eye that only came after years of motherhood.

 

‘I know that. But if anything happens that you need us for and Kirsty can’t fix up at Barlochhan, we’ll be staying at Walker’s Inn in Crieff tonight and we’ll try and be with you by lunchtime at the latest tomorrow. Here,’ reaching for a scrap of yellowing paper on the never emptying pile on the dresser, she scribbles down the contact details.

 

‘If anything should happen, use the phone or cable us. Will you do that?’ Moving slowly to cup her second daughter’s cheek, feeling the soft skin skim tightly over her high, Mackenzie cheekbones.

 

Brianna’s eyes are flashing as she draws back, her jaw set in mule-like stubbornness.

 

‘ _I’m fifteen, Mam! I’m no’ a bairn anymore!’_

 

Faith is already dressed for the hospital, her hair tumbling chaotically out of place as she tries to pin it in place under her cap, hardly listening to the conversation.

 

‘Yes _, thank ye_ , Mam.’ Brianna rolls her eyes theatrically and from his corner by the door into the dining room, Jamie makes a small Scottish noise of disapproval deep in his throat.

 

‘Ye’ll no’ speak to your Mam in that way again, _a nighean ruaidh’_ his gaze is as steady as it is unseeing, the third and fourth fingers of his right hand drumming a tuneless tattoo against the dark fabric of his tie as he knots it tight.

 

‘We’ll be fine Mam, honest,’ Faith interjects hurriedly, eyes huge as they dart from mother to father to sister and back again. ‘ _Won’t we,_ Bree?’

 

Brianna opens her mouth to argue but is silenced by the door to the back stairs opening and William’s ruddy face peeping round, eyes widening ever so slightly at the sight of his parents and sisters congregated in the kitchen.

 

‘Are we going yet?’

 

‘Aye’, Jamie replies, brusquely, tucking the precious petrol coupons and the Land Rover’s registration book into the breast pocket of his jacket. ‘We are.’

 

* * *

 

 

The drive from Inverness to Ardvreck; from the rambling, heather strewn hills of the Highlands with sheer cliffs and shining loch shores to the softly undulating landscape of Crieff, takes just over two hours in the Land Rover.

 

As the landscape changes, softening to the Lowland hills of Fife and beyond and the news crackles into life yet again on the ancient Galvin Brothers’ in car radio, Claire feels Jamie’s body tighten beside her, his knuckles tense and white against the steering wheel.

 

‘ _Are you alright?’_

It’s an unspoken question, one that floods through her fingers as she reaches for him.

 

The bright blue eyes that she had fallen in love with all those years ago hold hers for just a moment before flicking back to the road, a muscle twitching visibly in his jaw.

 

‘ _Nay, Sassenach, but I’ll bide. Just be wi’ me when we get there?’_

A lump catches in her throat at his unspoken words, tearing her gaze away to William, who is fast asleep, tawny head rested against the window; a small smile flickering across his lips.

 

Claire cannot help but smile at sight of her sleeping son, her heart bursting with love as she reaches out to brush a stray curl out of William’s eyes. He stirs at her touch, his arms hugging his body tighter, but doesn’t wake.

 

 _Oh, my darling boy,_ Claire thinks, letting her fingers linger against the bright skin of his cheek. 

 

_I do love you. So much._

* * *

 

 

‘Mr Fraser! Mrs Fraser! How absolutely delightful to see you!’

 

Jamie wishes that the sentiment could be returned.

 

No sooner had the Land Rover’s tyres crunched on the gravel had the great Oak doors that he remembers standing in front of on his first day of term in 1912, opened.

 

From the upper windows; master’s offices, classrooms and dormitories, Jamie can see pale shadows of faces peering down at them, boys in a sea of dark green and grey who should be at their books jostling for the best view of the visitors.

 

‘Mr Fleming at your service. The journey down was favourable, I trust?’

 

Claire nods, her face all smiles, extending a hand to the master who takes it in both his own, hazel eyes shining.

 

On his other side, William presses close to Jamie; a small, hot hand creeping into his own.

 

He glances down at the pressure, sucking in a breath at the sight of his son’s pale face, the amber eyes huge in the pale light.

 

‘Are ye all right, _mo mac?’_

 

‘Aye’, William manages to swallow, but doesn’t let go of Jamie’s hand.

 

It takes a moment before Jamie realises that Claire and Mr Fleming are waiting for something, Claire’s eyes dancing from husband to son and back again.

 

‘I’m sorry, I was miles away. What did ye say?’ The words feel choked on his tongue, blood sloshing in his lungs and he coughs, trying to clear them.

 

‘Mr Fleming is going to take us on a tour of the school, Jamie, if that’s all right with you?’

 

Claire’s voice is soft with love, only a hint of worry tugging at the question.

 

‘Aye, that’s fine. Thank ye sir.’

 

Fleming inclines his head in acknowledgement and sets off to lead them into the pillared great hall.

 

* * *

 

 

‘So Mr. Fraser, forgive me, but I cannot recall your dates with us?’

 

The question is spoken in the quiet of the dining room, the last venue in their tour of rooms and buildings that Jamie had thought long forgotten; bare, oak wood tables looked down upon by generations of Old Ardvreckians, gazing out from the sepia toned photographs that adorn the walls.

 

‘September ‘12 to July ‘17, though I did leave at the end of my first Spring term, for a short time.’

 

The words feel dry and distant in his mouth, but they are all he wants to say on the subject of Willie’s death to this new master.

 

‘Ah,’ Fleming pauses on his navigation of the dining room, looking out through the wide, slashed windows onto the lawn.

 

‘When old Piper told me of your interest in the school for your son, I couldn’t resist looking back through our archives. You wouldn’t be related to the late William Fraser, would you?’

 

That question pulls him up short. Pulls him up so it is a minute before he realises that they have stopped in front of a faded Rugger 1st XV photograph dated from the autumn of 1912.

 

He blinks up at the grim and faded faces staring mutely back at him and finds his brother, his face ruddy, lean, golden and unblemished by smallpox, his hair a tousled, tangled crown, sat clutching the rugby ball; slanted eyes that are full of hope and promise, almost drunk on the prospect of a golden future, shining at the camera.

_Slean leat, mo_ _bràthair_ _. Slean leat._

‘ _A Dhia’,_ he breathes, the word mutely strangled against his throat, grabbing the table edge to steady himself.

 

 To hear his brother’s name spoken, to see him in the flesh in this hushed room where he had spent many long and lonely meal times wishing to be somewhere, anywhere else is more than he can bear.

 

‘Jamie? Jamie, it’s all right. Come back.’

 

The world seems to tilt dangerously, the present slowly slipping away into a pit of memories; the firm weight of Claire’s hand on his arm the only thing that is holding him steady.

 

It is a long moment before he can master himself.

 

Longer still before he can find the courage to speak.

 

‘Aye’, he feels himself nod, tearing his eyes away from the photograph, but not truly seeing Mr Fleming’s sharp, dark features. Claire’s eyes are wide and shining as he turns to her, wanting nothing more than to hold her, to take her and his son away from this place that holds too many ghosts, too many memories that he cannot share.

 

‘Aye’, he repeats again.

 

‘A tragic loss,’ Fleming murmurs into the quiet, coughing politely into his handkerchief. ‘A good scholar and a uniquely gifted sportsman, as my elder contemporaries tell me. Tragic.’

 

‘Well now,’ he continues, ‘if you’d like to follow me to the master’s office, I’d like to discuss William’s potential here, if you’d be so kind.’

 

‘Thank ye sir,’ Jamie murmurs, trying to shake off the cold chill that has enveloped him since he entered the dining room, turning a tremulous smile in Claire’s direction, but knowing that she isn’t fooled. 

 

As they turn to follow the master out and into the hall; a small, hot hand creeps into his, fingers latching leech-like through his own.

 

‘Da?’

 

William’s voice is tremulous in the quiet.

 

‘Aye?’

 

Nodding to Claire to go on, Jamie squats down before his son, reaching in his pocket for a ready handkerchief.

 

‘What’s amiss, _mo bhalaiach?’_

‘I…’ His son’s lower lip is quivering despite his masterful efforts to stem it and Jamie has to bite down a cry of pain at the sight.

 

‘I dinna like this place, Da. I… It feels… bad. Like there’s a _Ban Sith_ waiting tae get me. An’… I dinna want tae leave you or Mam, or Faith or Bree or Bran. I… I want… I want tae go home…’

 

The last word is caught in a tearful, choking sob that makes Jamie pull William closer, the thin bones of his son’s shoulder blades pressing close against his chest; the flat, hard back a comforting weight under his palm.

 

William’s face buries deep into his shoulder, making Jamie think of that first Sunday, all those months ago, when William had done the exact same thing and begged him not to leave.

 

‘Aye, _mo chiride,_ we will go home, soon. But d’ ye want to hear a secret first?’

 

‘Aye?’

 

Slowly William untangles himself from the embrace, eyes wide and shining; a tentative smile cracking at his lips.

 

Keeping his voice low, Jamie pulls the boy closer and whispers in his ear: ‘I dinna like it here much, either.’

 

_Too many memories._

_Too many ghosts._

 

‘What shall we tell…?’

 

William’s voice trails off, unsure of Fleming’s name.

 

‘Fleming? The truth, of course. See if your Mam and I can keep ye at home for a wee bit longer. Would ye like that?’

 

The fiery eyed nod is all the confirmation that Jamie needs and, without a backwards glance at the grinning, golden Rugby captain of 1912, they walk out of the dining room and through the hall to the master’s study to where Claire and Fleming are waiting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please feel free to read and review!
> 
> Comments, suggestions, constructive criticisms etc are like chocolate to my brain!
> 
> Much love and enjoy x


	21. Another Chance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jamie confronts his demons in Mr Fleming's office at Ardvreck School, whilst back at Lallybroch, Faith receives an unexpected letter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to everyone who has taken the time to read and review this story- your feedback and support mean the world to me!

The drive to Lallybroch the next morning is one done in silence.

 

Jamie has barely slept, the memories of being back in a place where his life had been shattered threading their way through his dreams like wire.

 

The landscape blurs before the windscreen; steely drops of rain pummelling at the windscreen wipers; large, hulking shadows rising out of the mist, looming over the road.

 

His hands ache.

 

The stiff fingers are throbbing with an intensity that he hasn’t felt since the march, trying to evade the terrifying force of the Russian guns in the middle of a Baltic winter that had felt like the approach of Armageddon; aching against the rubber of the wheel, his eyes blazing with exhaustion.

 

Beside him, Claire sleeps.

 

Her head is pillowed on his shoulder, one hand clutching his arm, the dusky mass of curls tumbling from its’ pins in a soft, thick veil over her face.

 

Tearing his eyes from the road for just a moment, he lets them feast on her; the soft, dark mass of her hair flecked through with the faintest highlights of silver flickering through his fingers.

 

She stirs slightly at his touch but doesn’t wake.

 

 _‘Mo Sorcha’,_ the word is barely a breath to his lips, a finger reaching out to gently tuck a lock of hair back behind her ear, whispering his love in a reverent hush in the thick, dense space of the Land Rover.

 

Remembering the achingly endless expanse of time and space that he and his fellow officers had undertaken to Bavaria, packed like cattle in the railway trucks.

 

Remembering the way that her name had been the only tangible comfort that he had found in those agonising hours in the winter of ‘42, packed ten to a cart with the hot, wet stench of sweat and urine a bitter perfume to his nostrils.

 

‘’ _Ere mate, what have we got?’_

_‘Couple of Tommies, I reckon. Led by a big fella. Look half starved to me, poor buggers. Here lads, come on. Come inside.’_

_And then the warmth of mouldy blankets being draped over shoulders, tepid tin mugs of thin, grey soup being pressed into shaking, frozen palms; the steady stream of chatter a rare comfort from the deafening silence on the road._

_They’d been quietly considerate those Aussie and New Zealanders, never ones to beat their gums about the new members of their crew and what unfortunate turn of events had brought them to Bavaria. They’d given what they could manage to scrape together to share, swapping stories about girls or wives back home for a twist of tobacco, the wistful, hopeful look of youth that he had thought that he’d never see again cross another man’s face, sparkling in the depths of dead eyes._

_Where are they now, those men who had given everything they had to aid a scraggly bunch of Scottish officers?_

Claire stirs slightly at his touch but doesn’t wake.

 

In the back, William sleeps soundly on; his crown of auburn curls pillowed up against the window; a small smile twitching at his lips.

 

Outside the window, the rain is slowly lightening, the roads near empty of traffic as they swing up past Loch Avie and into the Highlands.

 

Slowly, he shifts in the seat, easing out the tense muscles of back and buttocks, trying to focus on the road ahead.

 

The memory is a knife scraping against his heart, bleeding the wound clean over and over again and slowly, gently he lets it come.

 

* * *

 

 

_Fleming’s office, formerly occupied by Mr Piper, had changed little in the time that Jamie had spent away from Ardvreck._

_The brown, musty horsehair sofa was the same, the framed photographs of 1 stXVI rugger and hockey teams of boys whose lives he had not shared staring blindly down from the cream coloured walls. _

_There was no mongrel terrier to greet them now, no yellow eyes gleaming from a black mask, the long lines of Badgers buried under the apple tree on the lawn._

_William’s hand had been hot and heavy in his palm as he steered his son through the large, oak door, pulling it shut with a faint, tugging squeak; sucking in a breath as memories that he has tried so hard to forget, that have been dragged up from the depths of his physche, jostled for position in his brain._

_Claire’s gaze had been soft with smiles from her position on the sofa, calm and composed as only she could be; her eyes darkening slightly as they take in Willie’s pale face, the slight trembling of his lower lip._

_‘Is he alright?’_

_The question had been spoken in union by Claire and Fleming, sitting silently behind the desk once occupied by Piper._

_‘Aye, he’s fine. A tad overcome, weren’t ye, mo mac?’ Jamie had spoken to Claire, quietly raising an eyebrow in the hopes that she would understand, the hand on his son’s shoulder tightening its’ grip momentarily._

_William had nodded bravely; a small, tremulous smile quivering at the corner of his lips, slipping onto the sofa beside Claire, pressing close to the safety of his mother._

_Only Jamie remained standing, remembering all too clearly the feeling of utter, unbearable hopelessness that had engulfed him when he had first sat on that sofa. Remembered being unable to move; his whole body feeling as it had been plunged in ice, to think, to feel anything bar the desperate need to scream, to rage and refute everything that had been relayed to him regarding his brother’s death._

_‘Good,’ Fleming had moved from his position by the window looking out over the lawn, to the desk; his eyes dark and unreadable._

_‘Now’, long fingered hands steepled under the master’s chin._

_In that moment, Claire’s hand had reached for his, her fingers slowly threading through his own, squeezing gently._

_‘I know,’ the squeeze had seemed to say. ‘I’m here.’_

_‘I want to talk to you about William’s future here as a student.’_

_‘With all due respect, sir,’ the words were out of his mouth before he had truly understood what he was saying._

_‘Yes?’_

_So calm._

_So damnably, damnably calm._

_‘We willnae be enrolling William here.’_

_The words had hung in the thick, ink infused air for a long moment before crashing to the ground, never to be heard again._

_Claire’s grip tightening against his fingers, Willie’s eyes flicking up to meet his, burning with something that could have been hope._

_‘I’m sorry?’_

_Fleming’s disbelieving cough had been cleverly disguised, but Jamie had still sensed it._

_‘I said that my wife and I will not be enrolling William at this time.’ A deep, steadying breath, wishing that he had a whisky, something to burn feeling back into his aching throat. ‘Forgive me, Mr Fleming, but I canna be comfortable with the thought of my son at a school where boys are brought from their beds for the pleasures of the masters.’_

_It had given him a small sting of satisfaction to see the master’s face pale to something like the colour of sour milk._

_‘You… You dare…’_

_The words had been a badly concealed stutter, the weight of Jamie’s hand rising from William’s shoulder, moving slowly out from behind the sofa._

_The weight of the polished parquet floor had thudded through his feet as he crossed the space between sofa and desk in a single stride._

_‘Aye, I do. I’m no’ eight years old any more, Fleming.’_

_Had made his lip curl slightly at the sight of the dark eyes widening, the mouth that a moment ago had been split with smiles gape wide like a landed fish._

_‘I… I know that… But…’_

_The words had stuttered out from the master’s mouth, trailing off into nothingness._

_‘But nothing,’_

_‘I canna be comfortable wi’ the thought of my son being under the care of masters who feel it is their right to take their boys tae bed when the pleasure arises for them. Wi’ the thought of him sleeping under the same roof where my brother suffered alone wi’out a hand tae help him.’_

_From her seat, Claire had sucked in a breath, her face just out of Jamie’s line of vision, eyes glistening with unshed tears._

_He hadn’t been able to look at William._

_Hadn’t been able to take in those slanted, tawny eyes that held so much of his wife in them, eyes that were vessels of so much hope and promise, lest his composure crumble away from him completely._

_The third and fourth fingers of his right hand had begun to tremble then, their silent tattoo aching over the polished wood._

_The weight of the oak table had dug against his palms, splintering under fingernails as he had held Fleming’s gaze, daring for a contradiction._

_‘Mr Fraser…. I assure you that your remarks are completely unfounded, I… I mean…’_

_The man had been visibly sweating by this point, perspiration visible against his hairline though the day had not been particularly warm._

_‘Unfounded, eh? Is it unfounded for me tae want my son to be educated at a place where the masters dinna see their boys as pieces o’ meat?’_

_Each word had seemed to hit Fleming like a bullet, his face colouring and blanching in equal measure as the full measure of what had been said hit him._

_‘Those… Those are serious accusations, Mr Fraser,’ Fleming had said at last, visibly squirming, the words lame and hollow in the silence. ‘I…’_

_‘Aye. I ken they are,’ Jamie had heard himself reply, nodding in agreement._

_‘So ye’ll forgive me for withdrawing William with immediate effect. Thank ye for giving us your time.’_

_He had been two strides out of the office, one hand firmly on William’s bony shoulder, walking firmly through the hall into the weak, October sunlight, the other tucked around Claire’s waist, when Fleming’s voice had called him back._

_‘Fraser, forgive me, but where will you send him?’_

_The master’s face had been in the process of returning to its’ usual colour, a sheen of sweat still visible against his upper lip._

_Jamie had lifted his chin and fixed Fleming with a long, blue look that pierced the space between them like a dagger through cloth._

_‘Anywhere but here.’_

* * *

 

 

Lallybroch

‘Faith! Faith, there’s a letter for ye!’

 

Brianna’s voice carries clearly through the house, up to Faith’s room,  where she is using the unexpected quiet to catch up on some much-neglected reading.

 

The sun is a weak, white speck over the moor outside her window, a curlew’s call low and distant in the air.

 

‘Aye?’

 

It is a moment before she calls back through the morning stillness, marking her place with a scrap of ribbon and slowly untucking her body from the comfortable warmth of the seat.

 

There is no need to move very far though, as in that moment, Brianna’s hopeful face peaks around the door; eyes bright and shining, looking like she’s dragged herself through a bramble hedge backwards.

 

‘Are Mam and Da back yet?’

 

The younger girl shakes her head, grinning madly; a thick yellow envelope tucked in her palm, hidden behind her back.

 

‘They willnae be back for hours,’ Brianna replies, dancing from foot to foot, the letter hiding in plain sight.

 

This is for ye,’ the letter dances into her sister’s hand for a moment and in an instant Faith has snatched the envelope from her.

 

Her heart is lodged somewhere in her throat, a strange, dense wetness smarting at the corner of her eyelids.  

 

_She hadn’t expected him to write._

_Not now._

_Not after all this time._

 

She blinks hurriedly, willing the tears away and swallows thickly.

 

‘Faith? What is it? What’s… What’s the matter?’

 

Brianna’s face is creased with concern, the joviality from moments ago faded entirely.

 

‘Go away, Bree. Please.’

 

The words are thick in Faith’s throat, turning away from the younger girl so that she cannot see her tears.

 

Cannot see the way that she twists at Johnny’s engagement ring, jerking the simple metal band up and down her finger, wanting nothing more than to rip it off and throw it out of the window onto the gravel terrace below.

 

‘But…’

 

‘Just go! Pease… Please just go!’

 

The words flare up from the very base of her heart, cascading from her mouth in an agony of fire that she knows is uncalled for but cannot stem, the tears burning against her eyelids, blurring her vision until the room is little more than a mass of swirling, shifting shapes, clutching the hard-won letter to her chest.

 

The last thing she hears before she curls up into the chair to read the letter is the slam of her bedroom door, a ripple of chilled October air swirling in her sister’s wake.

 

* * *

 

 

The paper is thin and water stained, blue ink bleeding through the crinkled yellow wood pulp.

 

Her fingers tremble against the handwriting, straight and spidery, a doctor’s hand, her heart aching in a choked sob as she takes in the postmark, barely legible against the soft, smudged ink.

 

_Zittau._

_Germany._

_A German doctor who had studied for his profession in Glasgow and taken on her country as his own._

_He’d made it back then. Somehow, despite all the odds that had been stacked against him, he’d made it back._

_Made it back to be with his mother with her arms like tree trunks, her goats and her black and white dirndls embroidered with red roses, her greying hair looped up in plaits above her ears._

_Made it back to his little sister Ada who played Chopin on the piano without a single mistake, even though she had only been six when he’d left to study in Scotland to become a doctor. His little sister who would not be so little now._

Blinking hard against the fresh and unexpected onslaught of tears that threaten to overwhelm her, she reads on.

**_Zittau, March 1944_ **

**_Dear Nurse Fraser,_ **

****

**_Please accept my humble apologies for calling you ‘Nurse.’_ **

****

**_In the two and a half years that I worked with you, you never once told me your real name. Your Christian name, the name that your Mama and Papa call you when they come and kiss you good night._ **

****

**_You look like a Mollie, or if you lived in Germany, I think you would be a Delma. It means noble protector, if you are interested._ **

****

**_As you can see from the postmark on this letter, I have made it back to my beloved Deutschland._ **

****

**_Do not, I beg you hold this against me, dear one._ **

****

**_If we have lost the war by the time you have received this missive, then I hope; nay, I pray that you are happy. That your beloved Papa has made it home to you and your siblings. That your Lallybroch is safe._ **

****

‘You bloody man,’ Faith sniffs, squeezing her eyes shut for a moment, willing the tears away. Willing the memory of him; tall and dark with his hazel eyes that burnt all colours of fire in their depths out of her head. ‘How the hell did ye know?’

 

**_You think that I didn’t hear you weep in a quiet corner in the nurses’ mess when there was no news and you thought that no one could hear you? That I didn’t see you sniff, dab your eyes and say bravely that you were perfectly all right, you simply had a cold?_ **

****

**_When all I wanted to do was hold you and tell you that no matter what happened, I would always try and be there for you, that your dear Papa would, one day, come home to you._ **

****

**_And now, to the real purpose of this letter._ **

****

**_Do you remember a German pilot who came in to the hospital in ’42 after_ ** **_Lübeck?_ **

****

**_After I handed in my discharge papers to the hospital board, led by that old crow Sister MacDonald (is she still there?)_ **

****

Despite her tears, Faith cannot help but give a rueful chuckle at that not inaccurate description of Sister MacDonald, the matron of Broch Mordha’s hospital and the terror to all, nurses and patients alike. Tries not to think about the clammy touch of the pilot’s skin under her fingers, the veins of his hands feather light through clenched fists; eyes squeezed shut against the pain.

 

 _‚Kleine Schwester‘,_ he’d whispered when he came round from the ether, turning large, safe, Aryan blue eyes to her as she had sat by his bedside, holding his hand in the hope of reassurance; a soft smile trembling with tears at the corner of his mouth.

 

**_I went to look for him. I do not know what drew me to his case as he was one of hundreds who came in during those dreadful hours; and yet, to see you with him- both of you so young and brave in the face of such atrocities, made me realise just how important it was to get him home._ **

****

**_To make sure that he had a home._ **

****

**_Dear Nurse, his name is Ebren Krause and he thanks you. I don’t know how, but the first thing that he asked me when we met in a tiny, plucky café that served piping hot black acorn coffee and white rolls that you could cut your teeth on, in a bombed out side street in Leipzig, was for the state of your health._ **

****

**_‘Tell her that I wouldn’t have survived without her kindness, her courage, her compassion. That she is a brave lioness, the bravest girl that I have ever seen.’_ **

****

**_He wants to come and visit you in Scotland, to repay you in person for your kindness._ **

****

**_As do I._ **

****

**_Will you permit me to do that?_ **

****

**_Soon?_ **

****

**_Will you at least write and tell me that you have received this letter?_ **

****

**_I remain as ever,_ **

****

**_Your most obedient servant,_ **

****

**_Albert Peterson’_ **

****

By the time she’s finished reading, Faith’s hands are trembling so much that she can hardly keep the paper still.

 

The sun has swung round to the other side of the house, bathing her room in a swathe of dusky shadows. The trapped light glitters off Johnny’s engagement ring, taunting her mercilessly.

 

_A Dhia, why did it have to be so hard?_

Very slowly, she eases the silver band up her finger, wincing slightly as the metal catches against the ridges of her knuckle.

 

It comes free easily after that, landing safely in the palm of her hand.

 

By rights, she knows that when she looks at it, she should see Johnny, grey eyes glittering out of a pale face, framed with a crop of dark hair with his slightly protruding ears, but in truth?

 

She sees Albert.

 

Sees Albert kneeling on the bare, parquet floor of the ward, blood crusted against his skin, the brief brush of large, long, work worn fingers against her own, their eyes meeting just for a moment as they worked at ripping away Ebren’s uniform.

 

Sees the large, hazel eyes glowing with exhausted worry as she had swayed on her feet before him, dipping into a curtsey.

 

She stares at the ring for a long moment, watching the light catch and dance off the facets of the sapphire, the world in which she sits slowly returning.

 

Downstairs, she can hear the slam of the front door, Bran’s bark booming in welcome, followed by a cacophony of voices that she doesn’t want to distinguish.

 

‘Faith?’

 

It is a long moment before she realises that she is not alone.

 

‘Mam?’

 

Claire stands framed in the doorway, still in her camel coat, amber eyes wide with worry.

 

‘What’s wrong _mo chuisle_?’

 

Her voice is soft with love and worry, opening her arms wide for her eldest daughter.

 

‘It’s… It’s…’ The words are choked, broken in a fresh wave of sobs that tear at Faith’s throat in great gulps for air.

 

‘Mam, I canna! I canna do this alone!’

 

Before she knows what she’s doing, she has flung herself into her mother’s arms, drinking in the scent of mint and home and safety that cling to Claire like a drowned sailor gulping at fresh water.

 

Claire doesn’t reply, simply gathers Faith tighter into her arms.

 

‘I… I didna think that he’d write…’ The words are lost against the soft fabric of the coat.

 

‘I didna even give him the address, but…’

 

‘Hush,’ Claire’s voice is lost in her hair, soft and low against her scalp. ‘Hush my darling. It’s all right. Mam’s here, lovey. We’ll sort it out. Everything’s going to be all right.’

 

They remain there for a long time until Brianna shouts that tea’s ready, Claire’s voice a slow, soft lullaby in Faith’s ears.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please feel free to read and review!
> 
> Comments, suggestions, questions, constructive criticisms etc are like chocolate to my brain! 
> 
> Much love and enjoy x


	22. Love Beyond Boundaries

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After an argument with Brianna, Faith confesses to Jamie the true nature of the letter and her feelings for Albert Peterson.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to everyone who has taken the time to read and review this! Your support is utterly invaluable and means the world to me!
> 
> Much love,
> 
> Phoenixflames12 xxx

‘Faith got a letter today.’

 

Brianna’s voice cuts through the quiet of the kitchen, the scrape of cutlery against plates and the slosh of thin, rabbit gravy suddenly hushed. The evening light is waning over the laundry green; a blazing death of orange and gold fading into the soft, muted quiet of a pale, blue evening.

 

‘Aye? From whom?’

 

From the head of the table, Faith sees her father lower his fork and hold his second daughter’s gaze for a moment. Bright, slanted cat eyes flicking to her after a moment in silent question.

 

Sees how he sucks in a breath as he watches her try to remain calm, the napkin in her hand torn to tiny shreds in her lap. The paper catches under her fingers, her nails digging under the flattened wood pulp and tearing back until a multitude of thin strips lie in a heap; stark and white against the blue-grey skirt of her work dress.

 

Like bandages.

 

Like the bandages that she had laid out that morning as she and Maggie Murray had changed the dressings on one of their newest patients; a little girl of about six who had been scalded badly when carrying a cauldron of hot water out of her kitchen and had suffered agonising first degree burns to her arms and chest.

 

She still remembers the weight of the little girl’s deep grey eyes holding hers as she sat on the examining table, firmly biting down on her lower lip to stop herself from crying out.

 

Remembers the way that she had cupped the girl’s chin and told her softly that she could cry if she wanted to, unable to hide her smile as the little, blonde head had shaken resolutely as Maggie had gently and firmly peeled back the adhesive dressing, to see if there was any infectious drainage.

 

The mother, a woman whom Faith didn’t know from one of the hill crofts had stood silently in the doorway, her face crumpling with pain and relief when her daughter had been helped off the table, running ecstatically into her arms.

 

She had been pathetically grateful when Faith and Maggie had told her that the burns were healing, and she shouldn’t have to come back for another week at least.

 

‘ _Tapadh leat,’_ she’d whispered in tear choked Gaelic, squeezing both their hands between knurled, work worn palms, her daughter peeping around her skirts, flashing a shy, gappy toothed smile in the direction of the nurses. ‘ _Taing gu socair, nursaichean.’_

 

‘From…’

 

Brianna’s voice brings back her back to the present with a jerk and Faith hopes desperately, futilely that the words she knows that are coming next won’t make it past her sister’s lips.

 

Wishes that Albert could be her secret and hers alone for just a little while longer.

 

Her sister’s eyes flick to hers, but she cannot meet them.

 

Can do nothing but keep her head down, hoping that the anguished flush that she can feel flooding her cheeks is not visible.

 

On Jamie’s other side, Claire’s eyes are lowered, sending coveted looks to both her daughters, questions flashing in her hazel eyes that cannot be ignored.

 

In her lap the napkin is now nothing more than flakes of snow coloured paper, crumpled and useless.

 

‘From a German admirer,’ the words are out before Faith has realised that Brianna has uttered them. They hang in the silence for a moment, held together in time and space for a second that feels like an eternity before crashing to the ground, splintering into a thousand, tiny pieces around Faith’s ears. Willie’s eyes are as wide as saucers, flicking from one sister and back again, his fork spinning to his plate with a clatter.

 

‘German?’

 

The question is spoken with quiet, authoritative precision, something dark and unreadable passing over her father’s face for just a moment, his cheekbones sharp against suddenly pale skin.

 

‘Is this true, lass?’

 

Faith hardly hears him.

 

What she can hear is the blood roaring through her ears, the ticking of the kitchen clock sounding improbably loud in that moment, the hitched rasp of her every breath.

 

The room seems to blur before her, fading into Sister MacDonald’s office where she had hovered by the door, watching Albert sign his departure papers and say his formal farewells.

_Remembers the ghost of his hand cupping her cheek as they had stood in the shadow of the hospital gates in a blissfully brief moment of solitude, sheltered from any prying onlookers by the bulk of a horse chestnut tree._

_He had thumbed away her tears and made her promise that she wouldn’t grieve his memory for too long. His deep, hazel eyes had shone with all the emotion that neither of them could put into words and she had blinked and nodded in thanks for his handkerchief, dabbing fiercely at her tears._

_‘Dinna weep for me_ _, meine weiße Taube‘, he’d whispered, the Scots sounding thick and strange on his German tongue, but she’d wept harder, clinging to him with every ounce of strength that she possessed, unable to tell him why she had been crying._

_Unable to explain to him that ‘my white dove’ was her father’s pet name for her, that the words now spoken so softly in German brought back memories of being swung up into her Father’s arms. Memories of that last embrace on the platform, when he had smelt of smoke and salt and had held her fiercely to his chest for a long moment, telling her in a thick, choked whisper that she was his best girl and that he’d be home soon. Memories that she feared would now just be memories and never become reality again._

_‘It’s better this way,’ Albert had whispered, the words broken in his throat, hazel eyes shining in the soft, March light._

_‘If I can, I will write, but you must forget me, Nurse Fraser. Forget all this. Can you do that for me?’_

_His eyes had been glistening with unshed tears then, boring into hers, the fingers pressed against her cheek trembling with emotion._

_‘No,’ she had wanted to say and mean it._

_‘No, Albert. I canna forget. Dinna make me do that. Please.’_

_But she hadn’t said any of those things, because those were not the things that he would want to hear._

_‘I… I’ll try,’ her voice had been caught and small in the quiet and he had nodded gratefully, his fingers lingering on her cheek for just a moment longer before he had swung his bag onto one shoulder and marched out of the wrought iron gates, leaving her silent and alone. Leaving her with the choking after sobs that had wrapped themselves tighter than any cloak; the keening whisper of the wind through the leaves and the lingering heat of his touch on her cheek her only source of comfort._

‘I hate ye! You…’

 

The world spins sharply back into focus as the words explode from her mouth and she’s on her feet without any knowledge of having stood, pushing back from the table, tears pressing hard and insistent behind her eyes.  

 

‘Faith… I’m sorry… I…’

 

Brianna is on her feet, her blue eyes blazing with reproach but she doesn’t want to hear her sister’s apologies.

 

The last thing that she sees as she flees the room and hurtles blindly along the passage, through the hall and up the stairs to the safety of her bedroom is her father dropping his head into his hands, fingers raking through his hair.

 

* * *

 

‘Faith?’

 

She doesn’t hear him at first.

 

Hears only the hitched, wheezing of his breath as he climbs the last few stairs and pauses in the passageway.

 

Every bone in her body aches as she turns against the coverlet, clinging to the hot, wet pillow with all the strength that she possesses; hot, wet breath soaking the air.

 

‘What’s amiss, _mo nighean ruaidh?’_

 

A heavy, comforting hand on her shoulder, the bed frame creaking under their combined weight, the flare of the oil lamp on her bedside table hissing into life.

 

‘Nothing,’ the lie is thick in her throat, lost in the weight of the pillow.

 

A soft, deep laugh echoes in the back of his throat at that, his fingers pressing deep into the pits of her shoulder blades and she wishes that he wouldn’t.

 

‘Nay, lass. That wasna nothing,’ and she can hear his smile crinkling up to the depths of his eyes, intense and soft and blue. Feel the weight of his hand slowly working to her chin, giving her time to collect her thoughts.

 

‘She had no right to do that!’

 

The words are spat into the linen, broken and lost in a fresh wave of tears, as she props her aching body onto her elbows and twists round to face him.

 

‘No, Faith, she didna,’ his eyes are very deep and very blue. ‘But is it true? What she said?’

 

A deep, shuddering breath aches from her, her father’s face blurring in and out of her line of vision.

 

Slowly, painfully, she nods.

 

‘He… I worked with him… Back in the war an’… There was nothing… Nothing between us until he left and…’

 

_And in their final moments together, they had stood under the dappled shelter of the horse chestnut tree, the world falling away until it had been just the two of them. The cool breath of the wind had rippled through her nurse’s cloak, billowing it up against her ankles, ruffling at his feather-dark hair and Albert had cupped her chin and made her promise that she would forget him._

_That she would be happy._

But she hadn’t and she wasn’t.

 

‘Did ye love him, lass?’

 

Her father’s voice pulls her back to the present, soft and insistent.

 

She nods again, taking a deep, shaking breath to try and steady herself.

 

‘Da… You’re not cross, are ye?’

 

His face is creased with worry, the lines of his cheekbones thrown into sharp relief against the glow of the oil lamp.

 

In that moment, something darker passes over his features, something so fleeting that she will think later that she’s imagined it.

 

‘Nay, _mo chuisle,_ ’ his eyes shining against the gloom, smarts of silver glistening against the baths of endless blue that she loves with her whole heart.

 

A sudden, sobbing breath catches in her throat then and she’s in his arms, fresh waves of tears making it impossible to breathe.

 

He pulls her closer, his voice lowering into the soft, formal tones of the Gaidhilig that she has loved and missed so much, his chin resting deep in her hair. His touches are slow and fleeting, holding her together, pulling her heart apart.

 

The warmth of him holds her, pressing into the wool of her dress, easing her torn and tortured spirit as he continues to gently murmur her hurts away, descending into colloquialisms that she doesn’t understand.

 

It is only when she hears Johnny’s name, does she pull back, finding his gaze again.

 

‘What did ye say?’

 

He draws back, the soft male musk of kine and bracken, rain and heather stings at her nostrils and she wrinkles her nose, flashing a tentative smile in his direction.

 

‘I said,’ he pauses, and, in the dimness, she hears the soft tread of feet against the floorboards, click of a door being opened, the tug of it closing.

 

Her mother off to bed, probably.

 

‘I said, do ye still love him? Johnny?’

 

‘No.’ The word sounds so final on Faith’s tongue and yet at the same time, immensely freeing.

 

_Forgive me, Johnny._

_Forgive me that I canna be the wife that ye want, but maybe, just maybe, I can be Albert’s._

_Can ye grant me that?_

 ‘I… I never…’

 

‘Ah,’ It is more of a sigh than a statement and she feels, rather than sees her father’s shoulders sag in the saying of it. Feels herself being pulled closer once again, into an embrace that she never wants to end, the weight of a finger caught in her hair.

 

‘And this man,’ her father is continuing, his voice so low that Faith has to pull herself back to hear him, ‘this Albert. Can ye love him? He’s a German, is he no’?’

 

‘He came to Scotland in 1933. From Zittau,’ she says slowly, trying to remember the fragments, the murmurs that had filtered through to her from behind closed office doors, of Albert Peterson’s life. Shards that she had collected like fragments of coloured glass, trying to form a picture of this darkly handsome man who had captured her heart.

 

‘He came because he thought that he could study at Glasgow to become a doctor. His father, he was a well-respected banker in Zittau, I think, had died when he was six, but he… He’d left an inheritance wi’ instructions that Albert…’

 

She stops, swallowing thickly, trying to rid herself of the strange, metallic tang that Albert’s name left in her mouth. For so long it had been a balm to her; a quiet, secret warmth that had flared in her heart, warming her through the trials of war.

 

But to hear it said out loud…

 

Best to get on with it and see what happened.

 

‘Aye?’

 

Her father’s voice is gently probing, moving forward but holding back to give her the space that she needed.

 

‘That when he was a man grown, Albert was tae the lion’s share to go to medical school, join the RAMC and become an army doctor. His family were Jewish, ye see, though I didna think they practiced an’ Albert’s father wanted at least one o’ his family safe before an’… He… He trained at Glasgow an’ was then posted at Broch Mordha when the worst of the air attacks came through…’

 

She stops and sniffs heavily, dragging her sleeve across her stinging eyes, willing the tears away, barely noticing the square of blue and white checked cloth being pressed into her hand.

 

_‘Here, mo leannan, dry your tears. That’s it. That’s my best girl.’_

 

‘He was kind tae me, Da! I think that he kent that you were away, though he didna say that at the time. And he… He wants tae come to Scotland tae see me… Tae thank me, I think, wi’ a German pilot who came tae us in ’42.’

 

She pauses for breath, lifting glistening eyes to his, listening to the ragged beat of her heart thudding through her ears.

 

On the moor, an owl’s screech pierces the night. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees a wink of light chink and gutter back into darkness under Brianna’s bedroom door.

 

‘Aye, Faith and I’m grateful that he was kind to ye. But…’

 

The rest of the sentence is left unfinished, hanging like a dangling white elephant in the close, dense space between them.

 

‘Ye canna hold that against him! Ye can’t!’

 

The words are out before she can stop them, flaring hot and painful against her tongue.

A small, sad smile dances against the corner of his mouth at her outburst, a tinge of pain crinkling at its roots and he sighs before he speaks.

 

‘Nay, Faith. I canna. But… _Dhia,_ I just…’

 

He stops, shadows that had nothing to do with the guttering light flickering over his face. A face that is schooled into that mask of careful, controlled blankness, reining in memories that no language could give adequate voice to. For just a moment, he breaks her gaze, looking down at the coverlet; long, work worn fingers toying with a loose strand of linen.

 

‘Oh, Da,’ she murmurs, trying to smile, moved to sudden tenderness, as if he were William and not her father.

 

They are silent for a long while, listening to the house sag and expand around them, the pipes creaking above their heads.

 

Jamie’s eyes are closed, a muscle in his jaw working mechanically, his stiff fingers twitching against the coverlet. Faith watches him silently, trying to work out what is going on behind the mask that shutters out the light behind her father’s eyes.

 

_If only she knew what he was thinking!_

_Damn the deamhan fuilteach that did this to him!_

At last he takes a deep, steadying breath, eyes wide, hands flat and still.

 

‘Write tae him, _mo cholom geal,_ if ye would. Write tae him and tae that Bosch pilot inviting them tae Lallybroch, if they can make it out.’

 

‘Do you mean it?’

 

Her voice is barely a squeak, but he nods and smiles; a soft, genuine smile that makes her heart sing.

 

‘Aye, I do. Go tae sleep now, ye’ve got work in the morning.’

 

Slowly, he eases himself from the bed and trims the oil lamp down, a small smile dancing on his lips as he bends low to press a soft, chaste kiss to her forehead.

 

‘ _Oidhche mhath,_ Da,’ she murmurs, burying deep beneath the covers, still warm from his weight.

 

‘ _Oidhche mhath, mo cholom geal._ Sleep well, now.’

 

The last thing she sees before the room is plunged into darkness is the soft glow of her father’s hair glinting from the light in the passageway as he steps out into the night.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please feel free to read and review! Comments, suggestions, constructive criticisms etc are like chocolate to my brain!
> 
> Much love,
> 
> Phoenixflames12 xxx
> 
> Gaelic translations: 
> 
> Deamhan fuilteach = bloody devils 
> 
> Tapah leat = thank you
> 
> Taing gu socair, nursaichean = thank you kindly, nurses
> 
> Oidhche mhath = good night


	23. My Own Heart's Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In Broch Mordha, Faith comes to a final decision and lays her heart bare to Johnny, whilst in Zittau, Albert Peterson tries to kindle the flame of hope that has kept him going since he left Scotland

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to read and review this story! Your feedback and support is utterly invaluable and means the world to me!

**December 1945**

**Lallybroch**

 

The wind is an icy bite that whips up under her nurses’ cloak, burying under her gloves, her hands frozen to the handlebars of her bicycle.

 

Faith weaves slowly through the cool light, embracing the quiet, watching the fog cling to the skeletal trees, their black shadows rising eerily out of the grey-white air. Her breath billows in chilled plumes about her, gasping at the sting of it.

 

Out of the mist, she hears the steady, muffled drum of horses’ hooves on the dirt road and serves mechanically, her leg grating against the rusted chain, thrusting low into soft, wet grass. The dew soaks through her skirt, seeping into the thick, woollen stockings, tendrils of dead buttercup and comfrey clinging to her boot.

 

 _‘Madainn mhath a' caoidh,’_ a tinker whom she doesn’t know, driving a wood board cart covered by a leaking tarpaulin, raises a much mended cloth cap to her, clicking to the horse against his tongue. His accent has a twang of the south to it, the sharp Edinburgh vowels sounding strange in the soft, Gaelic words. The horse snorts and whinnies sharply, throwing its’ head up against the harness and she smiles in agreement, pushing off the grass and away.

 

Her presence at the hospital is not required until midday but she needed to get away.

 

Needed to get away from Brianna’s sharp glances and constant niggling; spitting like caged cats at each other in such a way that drove Da and Willie outside to the fields with Bran to bring in the kine and Claire to the stillroom.

 

Needed to get away from the kitchen where words that had been spat out from behind a mask of pain still hung thick and unspoken in the air.

 

‘ _I hate ye! You…’_

_‘You and your fine graces! Thinking that you’re better than the rest o’us ‘cause ye can go out tae work an’ see the world which is a sight more than I’ll e’eer get at this rate!’_

_Brianna’s eyes flashing dangerously, burning into her soul, gleaming with shards of unshed, angry tears through the dim light as they faced each other on the landing._

_‘Fine graces?’ The words had been a bitter laugh in Faith’s throat. ‘Fine graces?!’_

_‘D’ye think that treating wounded soldiers wi’ all their muck and their limbs blown tae Hell, seeing Da unable tae draw breath and knowing that I couldna do a thing for him wi’out help, gives me fine graces, a pluithair?’_

_‘It gave ye a man at least!’ Words flung in anguished anger through the gloom, lurching off the ceiling into nothingness._

_‘A man who made me promise that I’d forget him! Why, d’ye want a man like that for yourself? Is that why ye sneaked to Mam and Da?’_

_And if I hadna? How would Mam and Dad have found out otherwise? Ye wouldna tell them, ye havna got the courage tae!’_

_‘Aye, I would have! Just not then and no’ like that!’_

_A toss of auburn plaits, blue eyes blazing clear and firelit all at once and the sound of a door slamming._

Her bicycle plunges through the tunnel of weaved witch hazel and French maples that shelters the long, white road from the worst of the wind out on the moor; the wind an aching slap to her cheeks.

 

The sun is just beginning to rise, creeping slowly over Kirk Hill, glowing a weak, white light over the moor, her eyes stinging with the chill.

 

The bicycle skidders over the tarmac and bumps onto the cobbles of the main street; the great, dark hills looming up behind her. A shattered breath aches from her as she weaves her way through the throng of dark coated pedestrians, the tails of her cap streaming out in a wave of white linen behind her.

 

Ahead of her, the queue for the butchers has already begun; housewives bundled into dark coats, clutching their ration books between frozen, mittened fingers, stamping their feet against the chill, their morning voices clucking like hens in the quiet.

 

Onwards she climbs, up along the railings of the school yard, where past games of skipping ropes and hopscotch with Maggie Murray and Jessie Guthrie float down through the stones, and further to the hospital.

 

‘Faith! Faith, hold up will ye?’

 

The sound of her name in the chill of the wind pulls her up short.

 

‘Aye?’

 

Johnny is pedalling up to meet her, ears blushed pink with cold, his breath coming out in plumes of white fog that momentarily mask his face. His grey eyes gleam from under a dark cap, moving almost immediately to her mittened hand where her ring finger now lies empty clasping at the handlebar.

 

‘Have ye got a minute?’

 

 _She might have loved him once,_ she thinks; loved that shy, quick face, loved the clerk’s hands with their long, deft fingers now clutching at his hat all shy, as if she is a vision that he has never seen before, and not the girl with whom he made mud pies with when they were little more than bairns.

 

She doesn’t know if he’s blushing from embarrassment or cold, the heat of the stares from curious passers-by hot on both their necks.

 

‘Aye’, she swallows after a long while, gathering herself together, watching him through cool, queer eyes as he blushes, twisting his cap firmly between his fingers.

 

‘Weel… I… I was wonderin’… If… An’ only if ye cared for such a thing…. If we could take tea together doon at Mrs Pearson’s? Just fae a moment, like. But if…’

 

Faith cannot help but smile at that, heart twisting somewhere in her chest at what she knows she must tell him.

 

* * *

 

 

The tea is piping hot and black, served with milk, hard, gritty scones that felt like stones had been baked into the flour, and a dab of butter and jam. 

 

It costs them half a crown each and Faith can feel the heat of Johnny’s gaze on her, eyebrows rising into his hairline as she digs into the small, cloth purse in which she keeps small change, for the coins.

 

They’d walked their bikes up the last stretch of the hill and chained them together at the door, fumbling with the locks between frozen fingers, laughing self -consciously at their clumsiness.

 

The tea room is quiet, only the soft gabble of a few men on their breaks with their sweethearts interrupting the soft, stilted flow of conversation.

 

She had sat down on the chair that Johnny had offered and looked away, trying to find the right words.

 

They are tall and gangly and awkward, the helpless catechisms of small-talk falling woefully short of what she knows needs to be said.

 

He asks her about the hospital, carefully avoiding any mention of the war and her father and tells her in a grey monotone about his work as a bank clerk in Inverness and how he would be glad to leave if he could find work elsewhere.

 

He pours her tea and she sips it, fearing the silence that laps between them could stretch on for ever, hating the heat of his gaze on her, the grey eyes raking her face, falling at last on the bare ring finger.

 

‘My ring?’

 

The question rings out in the quiet and she suddenly hates it, hates the grating tones of his voice echoing off the samplers, the soft, red furnishings and the bare, wooden beams.

 

‘I canna wear it tae work’, she says quietly, keeping her eyes down, toying with the teaspoon.

 

‘Johnny, I’m sorry, but…’

 

She looks up then, catching his gaze full in the face, holding those dark grey eyes that she had gazed into during the ceilidh after the war and hoped that she could love.

 

‘But what, Faith? Ye’re no’ getting other ideas, are ye? Cold feet aboot the wedding, eh?’ His voice is too rough, too loud, too coarse, the son of the crofter trying to better himself and she suddenly sees him in ten years’ time, coming home late from a night at the Old Lion banging through the front door at Kilmaurs Farm, red faced and stinking of drink, stamping out his boots and swearing blue murder into the quiet of the night.

 

_Does she truly want that for herself?_

‘Aye, I am,’ she says quietly, holding his gaze, watching the words hit him, bouncing off and then falling through him like stones in the black loch.

 

Over Johnny’s head, she sees her reflection in the long, old mirror on the parlour wall through the rough, wood beams, at once visible and then distorted by the long, green skirted bulk of Mrs Ellison, the bar lady bustling over with pints of ale and boiled beef, potatoes and turnips to her customers.

 

She sees herself, tale and pale; a thin, freckled face framed by the soft, white folds of her starched cap, a few escaped tendrils of hair curling against her cheek. The reflection flickers through the guttering light of the oil lamp, the slant to her eyes, slight cleft to her chin and reaches out a hand to press her thumb deep into the groove, biting hard onto her lower lip until she tastes blood.

 

_Not and never a crofters’ wife._

_Not now._

 

‘Ye… You’re serious? Ye dinna want me?’

 

Johnny’s question pulls her back sharply that her hands flutter and almost upset her tea.

 

‘Yes, I’m serious,’ she says, wishing for it to be over, yearning to look at her watch but knowing that it would be improper. _And I hope for all it’s worth, that ye find a fair lass that will think of ye as I did once and love ye for all that ye are._

 

‘Johnny, we’ve known each other since we were weans, but I canna see myself as a crofter’s wife, nor a clerk’s bed thing. Day after day up at Kilmaurs, I just… Call me a snob, call me what ye will, but I love my work and I willnae, I cannae give up what I’ve got for what ye can give me.’

 

The words come out as a jumbled torrent and after they’ve been said, she has to take a deep, steadying breath to calm herself.

 

‘Weel then,’ Johnny leans back, pitching his chair onto the back legs, hands clasped behind his head, blowing out a long, slow whistle through his teeth.

 

‘Can I ask who the lucky _duine uasal_ is? Or will ye keep that from me until it’s too late?’ The question is dripping with uncharacteristic malice and she starts back, frightened by the gleaming grey eyes boring into hers.

 

‘He… I worked with him at the hospital back in ’42. He’s an army doctor an’…’

 

_And German._

‘And?’

 

Cold rivulets of sweat are catching at the back of her hands and she twists them firmly in her lap, trying to stem their trembling.

 

‘He’s no one ye would ken, Johnny, but... But he’s German, though ye wouldna…’

 

‘German?’

 

The question hangs in the air for an improbably long second before crashing to the ground.

 

It was as though she’d belted him in the face. All the warmth that once lay there pales to the colour of off cream and then he blushes fiercely, grey eyes glowering, voice barely a whisper.

 

‘Ye’d marry a Hun, Faith? A man whose country has the blood of our own stained across its’ shores?’

 

‘Yes,’ she says firmly, ignoring the question. ‘I will. I love him, Johnny.’

 

‘Weel then. I wish you well with him, ye _gann creachaidh_ because it’s no’ that simple. Ye’ve proved that tae me well enough. Ye’ll return my ring tae me, I trust?’

 

From the table next to them, Mrs Innes from down the glen with her dark curls and eagle sharp nose turns in wide eyed horror at the accusation, tutting loudly so that the whole parlour can hear but Johnny doesn’t seem to see her.

 

Faith has to bite her tongue hard to stop herself from begging the old gossip to be silent, because she knows that it’s no use. If Mrs Innes has heard it, then the news that the laird’s eldest daughter has rejected Tam McPherson’s only boy will be the talk of the village by noon.

 

She nods, keeping her chin up and willing the sting of the words and the smart of her tears away as she digs into the pocket of her cloak and pulls out the black box with its’ velvet cushion and hands it to him, watching through suddenly sightless eyes as the long, thin fingers close over the cargo that had not been hers to take.

 

He’s on his feet then and reaching for his things, face set and cold.

 

‘Goodbye then, Faith.’

 

He hardly spares a glance for her, banging out of the tea shop in a stamp of his boots and a twinkle of glass, leaving her sat alone in the flush of the gas light, biting back tears and wondering, despite herself, where she went wrong.

 

* * *

 

**Zittau**

**January 1946**

 

The great, gabled library of the Zittau-Görlitz university creaks under the weight of the wind, the achingly cold fog clinging resolutely to everything in sight, its’ claw like fingers digging into the ground with a bitter, biting grasp.

 

Someone has lit the brazier, small flames leaping and guttering against the high, carved walls of the library, throwing the shadowed bookshelves into strange, distorted shadows. Hurriedly found dust sheets flutter in the chill, the creak of old wood mingled with the groans and grunts of the patients in the dark making a rare lullaby for anyone who cared to listen.

 

Overhead, the ghosts of shells quake at the ceiling, rattling like the trucks and freight trains that passed through fog-blanketed streets, rattling on towards the east.

 

Albert Peterson sits huddled up against the window, cradling a hunk of stale bread and mouldy cheese; the only food that had been left at the end of that morning’s queue.

 

The thought of food, proper food- soft, black bread baked with sunflower seeds and dipped in hot, sugary tea is becoming fainter with every passing day.

 

Sometimes, he thinks of Ada, up in the mountains with their _Mutter_ and prays that she is safe. That she has been able to plant out and harvest the radishes, eating them raw, sprinkled with salt as he had done so often as a boy. That she has remembered to pick the plums; round and soft and purple, cupped in the little, white palm and not left them to late so that the wasps have eaten them all, gorging on the soft, purple flesh.

 

 In the worst of his dreams, he sees dry, white stones hanging there by threads to the plum trees, the stones gleaming clean like tiny skulls against skeletal black branches.

_Sees a girl wrapped in a blue nurses’ cape cresting an endless white hill._

_A girl made of mist with soft tendrils of auburn curls catching out from the tails of her starched, white cap walking through a desecrated field of potatoes, dug up and broken in the rush from the invaders._

_Feels the soft squelch of potato mould over her bare feet; white, creamy flesh packed with vitamins that could feed a thousand scabbed and crying mouths crushing under broken boot heels, juices oozing into the soft, packed earth._

_Sees clutching claw-like hands reach for the remains of the plum stones, grabbing them from hand to mouth with such force that she retches, doubling over; blue, slanted eyes that are wide and dull with hunger piercing his for a moment that feels like an eternity._

_Hears the cry of her breath as he runs to her, soft and aching in the quiet and hopes with all his heart that it isn’t so._

 

‘Peterson?’

 

A thin, scabbed palm presses close to him, pressing a cool beaker of black acorn coffee into his hand.

 

‘Danke,’ he whispers not looking up, the word hoarse and broken against his tongue, dutifully sipping the coffee and trying not to gag.

 

His fingers are red and raw as they clamp around the beaker, old blood seeping into the fresh scabs and cuts that have had no chance to heal.

 

Outside the latticed window; a rich, full moon slips out from behind a cloud.

 

A bomber’s moon, the people called it. 

 

On the street below, he can hear the faint scurry of feet as the men and women of Zittau hurry home, desperate to be inside before curfew.

 

In his minds’ eye, the bread queue surges forward. The bread is not bread at all, but its’ mostly cellulose and warehouse scrapings. The Allies have bombed everything and yet, somehow, despite Germany’s defences being frayed to the seams, the housewives still cling onto the hope that today it will be different.

 

Today the supply trucks will make it through the last blockade and the precious sacks of flour, meat essence, oil, tinned fish, butter and cereals will make it through to Zittau.

 

It never is.

 

They never do.

 

Albert drops his head into his hands at the thought, shaking it away, raking shaking fingers through his hair, eyes aching with exhaustion.

 

‘Peterson? There’s a letter for you, you lazy thing. Come on, man. Get up, let’s not give up hope just yet.’ A hand on his arm, pulling under his shoulder, propping him up.

_Let’s not give up hope just yet._

_Lass uns die Hoffnung noch nicht aufgeben._

_Always the same words, now utterly meaningless._

 

The world tilts dangerously as he sways on his feet, the face before him blurring into momentary nothingness.

 

He blinks heavily, the figure before him finally, painfully taking form.

 

It’s an orderly whom he knows only as Faust, supporting his sagging body with one hand and holding out a packet of American cigarettes in another, safe blue eyes gleaming in the gloom, a toothless smile splitting his mouth.

 

‘They’re beautiful, aren’t they? Now come on, I’ll take you to the man who’s got your letter and then we can share them.’

 

* * *

 

It takes a bottle of bad beer, some bread and a place by the slowly dying brazier before Albert can get his hands on the letter.

 

The paper is crumpled but good, the grain of it still clear despite the many creases and folds and water stains that have marked its’ journey. It looks thin and frail sheltered between his worn and bleeding palms.

 

He finds that he is hungry for the words, famished for something that could bring him a hint of hope.

 

**Lallybroch, Scotland**

**November 1945**

**Dear Albert,**

 

**I dinna ken if this letter will reach ye, but I will hope and pray that it does. It feels like a lifetime ago that we said our farewells in the yard under the horse chestnut tree, and ye held me and promised me that ye would write.**

**For the longest time, I’ve sat here and wondered what tae write; wondered what will and willnae be found out by the censors, trying tae forget that I sat like this three years ago and wondered what tae write tae my Da when he was away.**

**Away! It falls sae short of the truth, but I canna bring myself to write the alternative. I hope and pray that ye will understand my meaning.**

‘I do, _mein Kleine,_ I do,’ Albert whispers, the words hoarse in his throat.

**I suppose the first thing should be that he’s home. He was very weak and ill with severe tuberculosis and malnourishment when he arrived, (tae see him then, ye would probably have called it starvation), but he’s on the mend now and better. He’s no’ the Da that I remember quite, as there’s something, some light that’s gone out o’ him that he’s striving tae rekindle, but he’s getting there, as Sister MacDonald would say.**

Here the writing stops and several lines are scratched out, the blue ink soft and blurred with what could be hastily wiped away tears, then starts again; firm and brave and his heart twists painfully at the sight of it.

 

**Have ye had word of Ebren Krause? Da has extended an invitation for ye both to come and stay at Lallybroch, if ye can both make it out tae Scotland.**

**Do ye think ye can?**

**Ye can stow away on a provisions ship, if it comes tae that and then… Well, I dinna ken what then. But I will try tae meet you in Inverness and take you tae Broch Mordha and then doon the hill from the tiny station through the town and over the hills tae Lallybroch.**

A choked, hollow laugh catches in his throat at that. The thought of the perilous, five-day journey across country over ripped up railway tracks, through barren, scorched villages, his homeland utterly destroyed to that place where the hills burnt with purple fire sounds laughable.

 

**Write tae me, Albert.**

**Please.**

**Yours affectionately,**

**Faith Janet Fraser**

_‘_ Faith.’

 

The name is a breath on his tongue; a whispered, pleading prayer.

 

With slow tenderness, he folds the paper up and presses it into the breast pocket of his tattered tunic.

 

When at last he curls up to sleep, his dreams are bolstered by the image of the tall, beautiful girl with the slanted, cat eyes of brilliant blue whose name is a whispered prayer against his cracked and bleeding lips.

 

Faith.

 

‘I will try, _meine Geliebte_ ,‘ he whispers, the fire that blazed in her eyes as she worked, the memory of which burns hope back into his shattered soul. ‘I will try.’

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please feel free to read and review!
> 
> Comments suggestions, questions, constructive criticisms etc are like chocolate to my brain!
> 
> Much love and enjoy x
> 
> German and Gaelic translations: 
> 
> mein Kleine = my little one
> 
> meine Geliebte = my beloved
> 
> gann creachaidh = treasonous bitch
> 
> ‘Madainn mhath a’ caoidh’ = 'good morning, nurse’


	24. The Longest March

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> February, 1946
> 
> The war is over. 
> 
> Travelling through a broken Germany in a truck full of dead and dying men, Albert Peterson tries to save those he can, including a young Lutwaffe pilot named Ebren Krause in the hope that they will reach Scotland and a young nurse whose actions have touched both of their lives.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to read and review this story! Your feedback and support is utterly invaluable and means the world to me!

**February 1946**

 

The bite of the wind rattles through the open truck as it slowly clatters over roads that do not exist anymore.

 

The truck is full of wounded men that stink of rotten flesh and the high, iron-sharp tang of blood, the air thick and heavy with their groans as the truck lurches through each hole in the road.

 

Albert does when he can in the cramped, fetid space, without medical supplies, water or room to move. A breathless wince whistles through his lips as the truck hits another hole, but his mind is too numb to care.

 

Many of the men who die under his touch could have been saved with instant blood transfusions, but the sharp, carbolic scent of the Glasgow training hospital and then the wards of Broch Mordha Cottage Hospital, a kingdom ruled by a company of white capped Scottish swans in their long, blue-grey dresses, is now no more than a distant dream.

 

A kingdom where once upon time he had loved and lost a girl with fiery curls and eyes that burnt with every colour of the sky.

 

Faith.

 

Faith Janet Fraser.

 

 Her name burns on the crumpled paper now folded tightly in the breast pocket of his dilapidated shirt.

 

Later, he will take it out to read the words that had ignited such hope in him are soaked with sweat; strippled with thin, scarlet splotches of blood.  Whether it’s his own or from one of the men, he will never know.

 

The faces of the dead are ashen, their skin grey and hard as the rigor mortis sets in, their mouths scarlet baths of blood and bone, dribbling over gaping, blue lips.

 

All he can think about is the here and now, what he can feel under numb, blackened fingers, the well of blood over his knuckles, the soft give of punctured muscle against his palm.

 

Albert works alone, stripped to the remnants of his shirt, the sleeves torn into bandages; white striped cotton ripping easily between his fingers, his hands caked with dried blood, muck and grime. A volunteer from Zurich who couldn’t have been more than seventeen, had wordlessly handed his shirt over, cradling a mangled hand to his bare chest; his ribs stark against the pale, blue-bruised skin of his torso. His slanted, grey eyes had been dark and distant with pain and he had whistled through his teeth, closing his eyes against a shudder of agony coursing through his broken fingers.

 

‘ _You…You take it_ _Arzt. The men that you can save will need it more than I will.’_

_‘And if I were in a proper hospital, I could set that hand for you. Save you being a cripple. I’m sorry.’_

Albert hadn’t paused to reply, simply nodded and gone about his work, watching the tale, pale frame out of the corner of his eye, pick his way across the swaying, jolting floor and slump down into a corner of the truck. The pale, blond head had been thrown back against the slats, the boy’s breath coming out in fast, gulping breaths against the pain.

 

Instead he had worked on, desperately trying to stem the fiery flood of exhausted emotion that is stabbing at the corners of his eyelids. Trying to remain focussed, to keep the rational part of his brain that he relied on from slipping out of his grasp.

 

Without the means to perform a simple blood transfusion, the boy will be dead by morning and there is nothing, absolutely nothing that he can do to stop it.

 

Bracing his hands against the mud stained, blood splattered floor, Albert tries to breathe steadily, counting each breath, trying to ignore the stench of death that assaults him at every turn.

 

The stink of burning is everywhere. It floods through the rotten wood, burying itself into his clothes and under his skin, making him want to tear his shirt off and peel his skin apart, one layer at a time.

 

The country is ablaze, only the scattered remnants of civilisation remaining. The ghosts of diesel fumes hang sullenly in the air, the bodies of those who had failed to go before them propped like wax dummies against the trunks of skeletal trees.

 

A ragged trail of refugees and soldiers follow the trucks, walking steadily into nowhere.

 

They are like patients coming out of anaesthesia he thinks; grey faced and frightened as they find themselves in the hospital bed, wanting desperately to return to tasks that they had left on the other side of health.

 

‘Wil… Will that boy die?’

 

The question, spoken by a man with a torn femoral artery, pulls him up short; scarlet life blood pumping itself into Albert’s hands.

 

‘Yes,’ he says quietly, because there is no point in lying anymore.

 

_‘And so will you and so will all these men, because I have been given nothing, I have come away with nothing but my bare hands and my brain and I can do nothing. Five years of medical school and eight years in the field and God help me, I can do nothing!'_

The thought is a dagger to his heart, unspoken agony plunging into the vital organ.

 

The man simply nods, his already pale face ashen with the exhaustion of staying alive, small dark eyes slipping closed, as if he has already made his choice.

 

Albert’s hands rest lightly on the scraps of fabric that he has been using to try and stem the worst of the blood, knowing that it will be no use.

 

Knowing that all he can do, all he can believe is in this one truckload of wounded, dead and dying men, in the scraps of weak, white sunlight that flicker through the rotten roof slats.

 

All he can believe in is the memory of a girl with hair the colour of fire, whispering through her tears that she loves him; the words almost lost in the song of the wind through the leaves of a horse chestnut tree.

 

The cart rattles over a pothole and then judders to a standstill, the cries of those on the road flooding back in the sudden, eerie silence. The driver, a man whom Albert has not had the pleasure of meeting, slams his palm against the horn, scattering the people ahead.

 

Some of the men have fallen back; their faces crusted grey with dust and dirt, their eyes hollow and sunken with hunger.

 

From somewhere along the straggling line of fleeing civilians, he hears the high, thin wail of a hungry, terrified child.

 

Albert has come to realise that hunger does strange things to its’ victims. It warps any sense of time and space, making limbs twitch convulsively, whilst grey, parched lips and tongues swell past endurance.

 

It makes once rosy, healthy skin crack and peel at the corners, eyesight weakening until they see of a world that is crumbling about them are blurred, indistinct shapes.

 

It makes growing young men melt like a candle and turns babies whose life has barely begun into old men whimpering for food that is never there.

 

That child, whoever they are, wherever they’ve come from, doesn’t stand a chance.

 

‘We’ll get there,’ he says quietly to a boy with a shattered jaw as he tries to stem the bleeding to the lad’s once strong mouth, that rises into high, fine cheekbones which in turn encase a strangely familiar face that rise up into deep set, safely Aryan eyes.

 

‘Get where? It’s not as if… Not as if we’re moving…’

 

He pauses, gulping down air like a man half drowned, splinters of blood and bone bubbling against the young man’s lips. With each breath, the wound weeps blood and all Albert wants to do is tell him to be quiet, that speaking will worsen his chances of making it to the transport on the coast and to safety.

 

But he can’t do that.

 

‘But we will be. They say that there are still ships. That if you have papers, you might have a chance of getting aboard.’

 

The words sound more optimistic than he feels, alien schoolboy optimism flooding his heart.

 

The young man’s eyebrows rise ever so slightly, wincing as he sucks in a breath.

 

‘Papers. _They,_ ’ he scoffs quietly, resting his head further in the crook of Albert’s arms, each word bleak with resignation. ‘And do you have papers, _mein Freund_? Do any of us?’

 

Each word costs him dearly, grey eyes glittering from the exertion and Albert nods, readjusting his hands on the man’s head, trying to keep his jaw in place.

 

From the shadows of the truck, a man groans; a low, agonising moan that Albert can do nothing about as he cradles the young, blond head between his blood-stained hands.

 

Outside, he hears the soft lilt of a foreign accent which he thinks is British and the creaking slice of a door bolt being slid out of place.

 

With one hand, Albert tightens his grip on the young man’s head and with the other, fumbles with suddenly nerveless fingers for his identity papers, ration books- German and British, though the British one is nearly five years out of date, waiting.

 

Against his cheek, the young man’s pulse throbs thin, but the niggling thought that Albert knows him will not go away.

 

A weak shaft of clouded sunlight pierces the darkness for a moment as the door groans open.

 

Squeezing his eyes shut for a moment, Albert squints as the shadows crowd the entrance, his heart hammering somewhere in his throat.

 

Two men, both dressed in foreign, khaki uniforms stoop low to clamber into the truck, clicking their heels together and raising their arms in a mock salute that Albert does not have the strength to return.

 

Instead, he tightens his grip on his patient’s jaw, wishing he had enough cloth for a tourniquet, knowing that if he lets go the man will surely bleed to death.

 

Out of the shadows, he can see that one of the men is sporting a scraggly moustache, the other with hints of stubble clinging to his chin.

 

Their eyes hold the same wide, haunted hunger held by soldiers and civilians alike; a deep grey that roves through the shadows, lingering on the dead and dying men, crept in at the corners.

 

‘Who’s in charge here?’

 

The man tries to keep his face impassive, but Albert sees the slight, distasteful curl to his lip, the hand reaching covertly into the breast pocket of his tunic for a handkerchief.

 

Slowly, painfully he raises his head, blinking as the bodies dance and swim before him before they finally solidify holding the grey eyed man’s gaze.

 

‘I am,’ the words come out more of a croak than anything else, his tongue hot and swollen, lolling uselessly in his mouth.

 

_When was the last time that he drank something?_

_When was the last time that the canteen of filthy water had been passed painfully from hand to hand; the warm, fetid water dribbling past swollen, bleeding lips?_

 

 Under his touch, the boy with the shattered jaw shifts slightly.

 

‘Your name?’

 

‘Albert Peterson. I’m a doctor. These men are under my protection. If we don’t reach the coast by nightfall, they’ll die.’

 

He trails off, watching the British soldier process this information.

 

The short, blunt words are all he can manage at the moment, his brain too full of the dead and the dying to spare much thought for pleasantries.

 

_The boy with the crushed hand is somewhere in those shadows, shallow breathing slowly thinning to the desperate throaty rattle of impending death._

_If I let go of any of them, they’ll die._

The grey eyed soldier’s companion scoffs quietly under his breath, only to be silenced with a look from the other man.

 

Albert remains quiet, counting the ragged, laboured breathing of the man in his arms, the disjointed thrum of a pulse under his fingers.

 

‘Do you have papers?’

 

Albert nods, digging into his pocket for his papers, his fingers brushing lightly over the creases of Faith’s letter, her words burning hope into his heart.

 

‘ **Ye can stow away on a provisions ship, if it comes tae that and then… Well I dinna ken what then. But I will try tae meet you in Inverness and take ye to Broch Mordha and then doon the hill from the tiny station through the town and over the hills tae Lallybroch.’**

 

He hands them over, schooling his face into a mask of careful blankness.

 

The grey eyed man scans them, frowning as he places a long, calloused finger on Albert’s barely legible signature, signed in Sister MacDonald’s oak panelled office, a lifetime ago.

 

_‘Keep these with you Doctor’, she had said, peering at him from over her half moon spectacles. The sun had been low in the sky, the soft patter of the nurses’ shoes as they tidied the wards and did the final rounds before light’s out, echoing through the corridors._

_Her face had been brown and weathered, a lifetime of work and worry etched deep in its’ creases._

_‘They’ll get ye back tae Germany on a fair wind and should, I hope be sufficient should ye wish tae return tae us when all of this is over.’_

_‘Thank you, sister. Truly,’ he’d replied, the lump in his throat making a grander speech impossible._

_He had risen then, pushing back from the desk and tucking the precious papers into the breast pocket of his jacket, trying not to think of how he will tell Nurse Fraser that he is leaving._

_Sister MacDonald had nodded, something strange glittering in her eyes as she watched him leave._

_His hand had been on the door knob, poised and ready to step out into the quiet, when her voice, quiet and authoritative, pulls him back._

_‘Peterson?’ Her voice had been soft, the softest tone that he had ever heard her use, eyes shining with what he had selfishly thought were tears._

_She had sniffed masterfully and reached into the depths of her black habit for a lace trimmed handkerchief; knurled, swollen fingers dabbing away her tears._

_‘I canna say how grateful I am for you. You have given this hospital more than you know. You have given us hope. Never forget that, Peterson. Ever.’_

_‘Never, sister,’ he had murmured quietly, tugging the door open and letting himself out._

_Later, as he had walked down the long, cobbled street to the station, the memory of the blazing blue eyes that had pierced his soul anew still fresh, he had berated himself for being so childish._

‘It says here that you’ve got a license to practice in the United Kingdom. By whose authority was that licence issued?’

 

The grey eyed soldier’s voice is sharp, bringing Albert back to the present with a jerk.

 

He stiffens and sits up as straight as he can, squaring his shoulders.

 

‘It was my father’s dying wish that I would come to your country. He… He immigrated to Germany from Edinburgh in 1900 to seek his fortune as a banker,’ he stops and swallows, willing the memories of his father’s final hours away.

 

Trying to forget the close, dense darkness of the sick room with the shutters drawn tight, the lamps trimmed low, the cold weight of his father’s hand, clammy mottled skin clinging to his own, his breath coming in weak, harsh rasps as he had made the six-year-old, terrified Albert promise that he would go to Scotland.

_‘Go, mein Sohn. Go and find your birth right in your homeland. Do you remember the stories?’_

_And Albert had nodded, blinking back the smarts of salt that had stabbed at the corners of his eyelids as he watched his father’s head turn restlessly away, fighting the heat of the pillow._

_‘The stories… The kelpies and water witches and druids and standing stones will all be there mo bhalaiach….’ His father’s voice had grown distant, the precise Zittau accent fading into a cascading lilt of the Gaelic of his youth as the ghosts of the past took shape behind his eyes._

_‘They will, Papa,’ Albert had whispered brokenly to the rapidly fading form that was once his father. ‘I will.’_

 

 ‘I came to your country to study the medical profession in Glasgow in 1933. I worked in the city hospitals for two years after my training before being transferred to Broch Mordha’s cottage hospital,’ he pauses for breath, his throat dry and aching.

 

‘Forgive me, sir, but you wouldn’t have any water, would you?’ We have very little here and those that are left are thirsty.’

 

The weight of the young man’s head in his arms, shifts slightly, the numbing pain in his thighs shuddering into painful life.

 

The grey eyes widen for a moment, a look of marked dislike flickering across the carved features but is gone before Albert has truly realised that it was there.

 

After a moment, he comes back to himself and pulls a small silver hipflask out of the pocket of his tunic.

 

Turning it over between his fingers, Albert sees it is engraved, the letters sharp and clear against the metal.

 

**Dear boy,**

**On the occasion of your engagement,**

**Your dear Mother and Father**

**March 1919**

 

Albert nods his thanks and drinks slowly, letting the lukewarm water cascade down his parched and aching throat. It’s bitter and gritty, but after the fetid stink of death that has assaulted his senses for so long, the faint hints of coolness that it brings to his mouth feels like manna from heaven.

 

The grey eyed soldier nods slowly, still studying the papers, flicking through them one by one.

 

His companion is silent, taking in the detritus of death that litters the truck with unseeing eyes.

 

‘You’re ten kilometres from Stendal. With luck,’ here the grey eyed soldier pauses and narrows his eyes in thought that Albert clearly reads as ‘ _bribery’,_ ‘you should reach the city by nightfall tonight. I’ll try and reach HC and make sure that there are medical provisions set aside for you there. You’ll reach Hamburg by dusk tomorrow.’

 

‘The Red Cross and the United Nations have chartered hospital ships that are leaving Hamburg for South Hampton to help relieve the refugee crisis. From there, they will take you north, if you ask at the processing station. There will be a sailing at first light. Ship’s named _Panacea,_ as I recall. Make sure you’re on it. There’s no guarantees, mind, but it’s worth a shot.’

 

Albert nods, relief flooding through him like water. The body in his arms shifts slightly, and, reaching down, he dribbles a little water into the parched, blood-soaked mouth.

 

‘ _Danke,‘_ he whispers to the soldiers, unable to put into words just how much their kindness has meant to him and the men in his care. ‘Thank you. Truly.’

 

‘Do you hear that, comrade? There’s hope for us yet!’

 

Keeping a firm grip on the boy’s jaw, he shakes the soldier’s shoulder, slapping his cheek, the skin painfully clammy under his touch.

 

After a while, the blue eyes crack open an inch, distant and hazy with pain, his pulse fluttering faintly against Albert’s touch.

 

‘What… What’s that you say?’

 

‘We’re getting out of here! Isn’t it wonderful?’

 

‘Wonderful,’ the word sounds dry and strange on the boy’s tongue, as if he has never spoken it aloud before.

 

A trickle of blood dribbles from the corner of his mouth and, wetting the tip of his collar, Albert presses close and blots it out shocking scarlet seeping into the tattered flannel.

 

‘If… If you say so, Peterson. I’ll… I’ll believe you…’

 

His head lolls back against Albert’s chest, eyes flickering closed, his breathing laboured, body turning limp and heavy in sleep.

 

He does not utter another word.

                              

* * *

 

**March 1946**

 

It is the smoke that bewilders her at first.

 

The smoke, the noise, the raucous cries of the station porters, the groans of the wounded all seem to swirl about her in a symphony of unintelligible sound.

 

Faith keeps close to the back of the nurse in front, steeling herself to see only the long, white linen trails of the cap before her, the swing of the grey-blue hem against the cobbles.

 

Sister MacDonald is leading the long crocodile of nurses, her black habit and flowing QA cap a stark contrast even in a sea of muted browns and greys.

 

The last time that Faith had been to Inverness train station was when her father had returned, eleven months and a lifetime ago.

 

_Remembers the crush at the ticket office, pressing close to Claire with Brianna on her other side, every woman there a wife or sister, fiancé or daughter, desperate to be the first to hear the slow, steam coated whistle of the night train as it pulled in from London._

 

_Remembers the tall, thin man with the strange, piercing blue eyes crumbling out of an emaciated face, clinging to her mother, their combined sobs choked and aching in the dusky evening light._

_Remembers the dense, smoky scent that had clung to him as she had buried her face into the folds of his jacket, clinging to him with all the strength that she had possessed._

_Remembers the way that her father had knelt to William and cupped his cheek, trying to smile at his son whom he had not seen grow or change, eyes flicking up in silent question to Claire._

_Remembers the way that her brother had shrunk back against their mother’s coat, amber eyes wide and fearful at this strange man who called him ‘blessed.’_

‘Faith? Faith, hurry up! We’ll get left behind!’

 

The weight of Maggie Murray’s hand on her arm, fingers digging into the blue serge of her coat pulls her back to the present.

 

Ahead of them, she can just make the white tail of Sister MacDonald’s cap disappearing into a throng of grey coats worn by bashful men who touch their caps at the sight of the crocodile of nurses in their long, blue coats, all wearing the white and red armband of the Red Cross on their right sleeve and sweeping, grey dresses and move aside at once with a murmured, ‘sorry sister.’

 

‘What were ye thinking about anyway, ye ninnie? Ye looked half asleep!’

 

Maggie’s voice is curt and breathless as they walk as fast as they can without running, pushing past the throng of civilians, to reach the ticket office.

 

Faith can only shake her head, the jumbling torrent of her thoughts beyond cohesive explanation.

 

Instead, she hikes up her skirts and grabs her cousin’s hand. Together, they run, rubber soled shoes slapping against the cobblestones, their sudden breath of laughter making passers-by stop and stare at the two red headed nurses, who ran with their coats flying, the tails of their caps streaming out behind them.

 

* * *

 

 

For the next few hours, those moments of wild, unabashed freedom are nearly driven entirely from Faith’s mind.

 

All she can think about is the stream of men before her; wild eyed, grey faced men that do not look like men at all.

 

Some of their faces are almost invisible under the soiled, bloody bandages that are wrapped around their heads, only the haunted whites of their eyes showing her that they are alive at all.

 

They are lines of humanity clothed in remnants of soiled green, grey and blue battledress, clutching to the frayed string on which their identity has been scrawled on crumpled yellow paper in fading blue ink with claw like hands.

 

Most of them are too shocked to speak.

 

Slowly, Faith guides boys that can’t be much older than Brianna to the ambulances sent by the Ragimore Hospital, bathes their wounds, ties bandages, reapplies dressings, finds sticks for those whose limbs are no more and tries not to think.

 

Overhead, the sun is slowly setting in a wide, deep death against the blazing purple of the heather.

 

The orderlies are trying their very best to lighten the heavy atmosphere as they serve cups of piping hot tea, crack jokes and wink at the nurses whenever their eyes are not on their work.

                             

Faith finds herself redoing bandages and bathing faces, trying to smile in a soft, sympathetic manner as the men under her touch writhe away from her hands, barking out expletives as her alcohol-soaked cloths catch at patches of agonisingly tender skin.

 

Later, they will be reprimanded severely by Sister MacDonald for daring to swear in front of her nurses, but Faith won’t hear it.

 

Instead, she holds heads and hands and watches faces slowly come to life out of blackened masks.  

 

It doesn’t feel real.

 

Any of it.

 

It doesn’t feel real that she’s running up and down the platform, all dignity forgotten, barely conscious of the fact that each footstep she takes leaves a bloody mark on the cobbles.

 

She feels apart from herself, an observer looking down on the sea of mutilated lives that continue to spill out of the carriages.

 

‘N… Nurse? Nurse Fraser?’

 

She’s just come back from propping up a lad who has lost his leg and has bandages covering part of his face, the site of his left eye a gaping, empty hole underneath his bandages, when she hears it.

 

‘ _Thank ye, nurse,’ he’d whispered, his voice, a soft, broken croak as she’d left him, called away by the insistent tones of an orderly._

Two men are staggering up to her, one all but carrying the other, whose legs are dragging under him, his jaw a mangled mess of blood and bone splinters beneath the bandages, his blond head lolling against his companion’s shoulder, eyes fluttered shut.

 

She knows that voice.

 

_The weight of large, work-worn hands encasing hers as they had stood in the shade of the horse chestnut tree, the rumble of the late afternoon traffic falling away until it had just been the two of them._

_Feather dark hair flopping down against high, fine cheekbones and hazel eyes that had blazed with unshed tears._

_‘Dinna weep for me_ _, meine weiße Taube‘, whispered with a broken insistency as he had cupped her cheek and thumbed away her tears._

But she had wept, her heart cracking again and again at the thought of him. Had wept and raged at the black looks that were shot in her direction whenever she ventured into Broch Mordha.

 

They were looks that spoke more than any words could dream to do and their memory still haunts her.

 ‘Doctor… Doctor Peterson?’

 

Her voice quavers in her throat, not sounding her own.

 

The wide hazel eyes seem to come alive at that, a tiny chink of light flickering through the darkness, the corners of his mouth twitching into something that could be a smile.

 

‘Albert? Ebren?’

 

Her voice is lost in wonder as she takes a tiny step towards them both.

 

The blond head slowly lifts itself from Albert’s shoulder; distant blue eyes cracking open an inch.

 

_‘Kleine Schwester?‘_

_Yes._

 

He looks older now than the boy she had knelt beside on the wards, ripping his blue pilot’s uniform apart. Looks older than the boy whom she had sat with when he had regained consciousness from the anaesthesia, holding his hand and telling him gently that it would be all right, that he was safe, that nothing mattered apart from his recovery, the lines of war drawing deep gullies across a youthful, handsome face.

 

‘Ebren?’

 

Her voice is barely a whisper and the blue eyes widen a fraction, a shaft of memory stirring from beyond their shuttered gaze.

 

A tremulous laugh breaks from her lips and without caring what anyone says, she finds herself stepping into their joint embrace.

 

Three pairs of arms hold each other up, drinking in each other’s scents, laughing through their tears as she finds herself passed into Albert’s arms, drinking him in.

 

 He reeks of the sharp scent of hunger and fatigue, his face lined and ragged in the dying half-light.

 

But when his lips touch hers, they are the same and for that she can only weep, laughing through her tears as she clings to him wordlessly, not caring who sees.

 

‘Yes, it’s me. You’re back. You’re home.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please feel free to read and review!
> 
> Comments, suggestions, constructive criticisms etc are like chocolate to my brain!
> 
> Much love and enjoy x
> 
> German translations:
> 
> Arzt = Doctor
> 
> mein Sohn = my son


	25. Safe and Sound

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Faith returns to Lallybroch with a seriously weakened Albert and with the help of both Claire and Jamie, the young Scot-German doctor begins to find a place within the Fraser clan

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to read and review this story! Your feedback and support is utterly invaluable and means the world to me!

The lamps in the hall are trimmed low; the cool, wet air of the night pressing into the high, slashed window above the carved Fraser crest on the oak lintel.

 

Jamie crosses the hallway carefully, feeling the satisfying creak of his spine as he stretches muscles that ache from hours of pouring over the farm ledgers and the rental dues from the Lallybroch tenants.

 

He will have to put aside time this week to go up to New Bigging, the furthest cluster of outlying crofts on the Lallybroch moors, to consider how the proposed new water course for the estate would reach them.  Will have to schedule a meeting with the game keeper, Archie Coulter about the new batch of pheasants being put down in the game cover crop and work out how many birds would be sustainable for the number of guns left to shoot them, but that can wait.

 

A tawny owl’s screech pierces the night and from somewhere in the depths of the house, he hears Bran’s low, rumbling bark, disgruntled at being woken by some inaudible sound.

 

On the second floor landing, the grandfather clock that had been his grandfather’s grudging wedding present to his parents, chimes away the hour.

 

Midnight.

_How had it got so late?_

 

From the top floor, he can make out a chink of light flooding under the door to the laird’s room.

 

It is a chink that slowly grows into a flood as Claire steps out, her hair curled about her shoulders, draped in the dark plum crepe de chine wrap that he had brought her for their honeymoon.

 

She is a selkie, a sea spirit, a naiad to him, standing fixed in the puddle of silvery-gold light, her hair curling in a dark mass fringed with silver at the edges about the pale, bonny face that he remembers falling in love with all those years ago as a cadet at Sandhurst and has loved ever since.

 

Remembers the way that those deep, whisky coloured eyes, full of tender encouragement, had held his as she had worked at plucking the asphalt from his bloody back. Had tended to his broken hand, cradling it between her own with a nurse’s gentle touch.

 

Remembers the way that she had taken his good hand and squeezed it lightly, a small smile playing at the corners of her lips, the gesture saying more than a thousand words ever could.

 

‘ _I’m here, soldier.’_

She is the one constant in his life, he thinks, drinking her in, memorising every inch and curve of her as she moves slowly down the stairs, feet tapping lightly against the bare, polished wood.

 

The one whom he had marked, their lifeblood mingling against the pale under skin of their wrists as Murtagh, dark eyes gleaming with pride, had drawn his sighean dhu lightly against their joined wrists and the centuries old blood vow, its’ words older than the hills themselves had flowed forth in rich, unending Gaelic poetry.

 

Gaelic that one day, he had hoped in the dusky sunlight of Broch Mordha’s Catholic Kirk, she would understand.

 

‘What are you thinking about?’

 

Her voice is soft is the quiet as she descends the stairs, crosses the landing and comes to meet him, work worn hands cupping his cheek.

 

‘I..’

 

He stops and swallows, unable and unwilling to break her gaze in order to gather his thoughts.

 

‘I was thinking about the proposed water course up at New Bigging, ye ken? Just pondering how we should go about it.’ He isn’t surprised in the slightest when she arches an eyebrow at him, whisky coloured eyes narrowing, searching his face.

 

It is a moment before she speaks.

 

‘The water course at New Bigging wouldn’t keep you up so late, my love,’ she murmurs, the weight of nineteen years of marriage gleaming in the depths of her pupils, her fingers pressing firmly against the rise of his cheekbones.

 

‘You’re right, _mo nighean don,’_ the words are sucked in on a breath as she nods, reaching up on tiptoe to kiss him, her lips soft and sweet against the bristle of his stubble. Slowly, he draws her close, relishing in the weight of her head tucked in under his chin, the twin melody of their hearts beating as one against his chest.

 

‘It’s Faith. She was supposed tae be home hours ago and I canna help but fear… ‘

 

The rest of the sentence is drowned out by the sound of tires crunching on the gravel, the soft, wet glare of dimmed headlights flooding through the old, worn wood of the front door and the insistent hammering of a fist against the door.

 

‘Fraser! Cap’n Fraser, are ye at home, man?’

 

Jock Kirby’s voice, caught and urgent, booms through the hallway, echoing off the walls as Jamie struggles to supress an involuntary shiver from coursing down his spine at the use of his army rank.

 

From the back passage, Jamie hears Bran’s startled bark, only to see a lumbering streak of brindled brown and grey skidder into the hall, claws clacking eerily off the bare, wooden floorboards, wolf-like eyes wide and gleaming.

 

‘What in the world…? Bran, hush, you wretched dog!’

 

Claire draws back from him, whisky coloured eyes huge in a face suddenly drained of all colour.

_I dinna ken, Sassenach._

‘Aye, Jock! What is it, _a chariad_?’

 

Slowly untangling himself from Claire, he moves to the door in a single stride and pulls it open, gasping into the rain as the full force of the storm hits him.

 

The rain is lashing through the night, soaking the courtyard as Jamie steps out into the night, the chill of the wind slapping his breath away. Claire is just behind him, wrapping herself in a throw-away rug from the horse hair sofa.

 

The Land Rover’s headlights gleam a dull glowing yellow as he blinks, trying to clear his vision.

 

Jock’s deep, dark eyes blaze out of a weathered face that is slapped red with cold and drink, riddled with purple veins and liver spots.

 

Out of the darkness, he hears Bran’s bark change into the joyous boom of welcome as he recognises the deep, rumbling growl of the farmer who had brought him back by the scruff of the neck to the main house with tell-tale scarlet jaws and a moustache of pheasant feathers dripping round his mouth many times as a pup. Jamie has just enough time to grab at the dog’s scruff, the wiry nip of the dog’s fur biting into his palm before he streaks out into the night.

 

 _‘Tha sin gu leòr, cù. Tha sin gu leòr,’_ the Gaelic quietens the bark into a low, rumbling whine, the rough, cold tongue scraping across Jamie’s palm.

 

The older man cannot reply, as in that instant the passenger door to the Land Rover is forced open and Faith clambers out, supporting the body of a young man dressed in the remnants of a ragged, grey uniform, the scraggly beginnings of a beard caressing his jaw, who can’t be older than twenty five.

 

Her eyes are shining with exhaustion as the young man’s head lolls against her shoulder, indistinct words of comfort flowing from her lips.

 

Faith’s uniform is crumpled from hours of work, her apron stained with livid iron red patches of dried blood and muck, her hair coming loose from her cap, swaying dangerously on her feet.

 

Instinctively, Jamie takes a step towards her, wanting to hold her, to protect her as he had done so many times when she was small, to draw her away from all the hurt and anguish that this new and broken world has let loose at their door.

 

‘Faith…’

 

His eldest daughter’s name is a caught breath on Claire’s tongue and yet Jamie doesn’t hear it.

 

His attention is torn between his eldest daughter and the sudden patter of two pairs of bare feet on the stairs.

 

‘Mam?... Da? What… What is it? I... We heard voices…?’

 

Brianna’s voice is thick with sleep, her hair tangling out of its’ sleeping plait as she hovers in the hallway, eyes widening as she takes in Faith, Jock Kirkby and the strange, young man, flickering from her parents to her sister and back again. William is just behind her, hand hovering on the bannister, looking impossibly young in his blue-striped pyjamas, his hair a tangled crown of fiery curls, amber eyes huge and watchful.

 

‘Take your brother back tae bed, _mo chuisle.’_ Jamie manages finally, heart cracking slightly at the sight of them both in their night things when by rights they should be safely tucked up in their rooms.

 

Catching Claire’s gaze, he nods and watches her slowly shepherd their two youngest back up the stairs, gently and firmly pulling them away from events that he had no wish for them to witness.

 

‘ _Come on, loves. Back to bed.’_

 

‘Da. Help me. Please.’

 

Faith’s voice cracks slightly as she grips the young man’s shoulder, staggering slightly under his weight. From his position by the front door, Jock Kirkby gives a silent nod that was not quite a salute and Jamie nods in reply, watching the bulk of the old man disappear into the night. 

 

‘Aye, _mo chiride.’_ Slowly, he takes Faith place, easing the young man’s arm over his shoulder. His face is ashen, his breathing fast and ragged, each breath coming out in a breathless wince that makes Jamie’s heart twist in sympathy and Faith bite her lip with worry.

 

‘Be careful of his side, Da. I… I think he’s sustained some internal damage, but there was no time to check and I canna… I canna be sure…’

 

‘Aye, Faith. The North Bedroom’s got nae guests in it. We’ll put him in there.’

 

The young man’s head shifts at the mention of Faith’s name, dark eyes cracking open for a moment.

 

‘W…Where…?’

 

His voice is a broken, heavy croak and Jamie watches silently as his eldest daughter cups the lad’s cheek, eyes soft and brimming with love.

 

‘You’re safe, _mo chuisle_. You’re at Lallybroch.’

 

‘Lallybroch?’

 

The dark eyes widen at that, flickering from face to face, the already pale face blanching slightly, then flooding with high, almost feverish colour.

 

‘Aye, lad,’ Jamie nods quietly, tightening his grip on the lad’s arm as he sways dangerously on feet that do not want to support his weight.

 

Those wide eyes rest on him for just a moment, confused exhaustion draining away to something that could be terror.

 

‘It’s all right. You’re safe here.’

 

A painful, disbelieving shake of that feather dark head before the wide eyes roll up and the lad crumples in a dead faint against Jamie’s shoulder.

 

* * *

_Voices._

_Soft, low, feminine voices coming through a darkness that he doesn’t understand._

_A blissfully cool something dabbing against his lips, his head cocooned in a warm, soft matter that he thinks is a pillow._

_Memories of the men’s restless heads thrashing against the rotten wood beams of the truck as it juddered over another hole in the road, their eyes squeezed shut against a pain that they had no control over._

_Memories of doctors in foreign khaki uniforms at the processing station at Hamburg keeling beside wounded men who were too weak to drink from proffered cups, letting the men suck preciously cool water from their fingers like babes in arms._

_A helpless, childish smile showing a mouth of gappy teeth amid a blackened, smoke dusted face._

_‘This is what we do when the calves are being weaned from their Mothers. Works a treat for them, sir.’_

_The weight of Ebren Krause’s head a dead weight in his arms, the throb of every, laboured breath a dagger to his heart._

_They had left the pilot in the care of the Ragimore Hospital. His jaw had needed instant reconstruction surgery if he was to survive._

_The sensation of being rolled over, the weight of a hand clasping his own, a soft stream of nonsensical nothingness not quite masking the sudden flash of pain that explodes through his gluteus maximus._

_A Penicillin shot, he thinks, as the worst of the fire subsides into a gentle, throbbing ache, the nagging thread of this thought anchoring him to this strange, half reality; refusing his body the luxury of floating back into the nothingness of complete oblivion._

_Where had she managed to procure a Penicillin shot?_

_‘Who is he, Faith?’_

_A voice that he doesn’t recognise._

_A younger voice, a girl’s voice that is pert with questions drifting through the shadows._

_The sound of a door being clicked shut, the sound of feet thundering down somewhere into a great expanse that he has no knowledge of, another voice, older this time, cutting through the quiet._

_‘Bi sàmhach, William!’_

_‘He… He’s a doctor. I worked wi’ him in the war. He… Oh, Bree… He’s the one that I received that letter from and now… Now, after Da and... And Johnny… I just… I canna… I dinna want… Can ye forgive me?’_

_‘Forgive ye? What for, Faith?’_

_‘For… For no’ confiding in ye. For thinking…’_

_‘Oh, mo chuisle, I was sore! Sore about all the cruel things that happen in the world an’ all the things that I canna hope tae change, nae matter what Mam or Da think! I didna mean what I said, I just… I was angry and afeared and I dinna want tae lose ye!’_

_‘Lose me? Bree, ye.. Ye willnae lose me!’_

_Another man’s name, the jealously crushed in an instant as a fresh wave of pain shakes him._

_‘I’m sorry, Albert. You’ve got a nasty open wound to your side and I need to change your dressings.’_

_Sorry._

_She was sorry!_

_And in his mind’s eye, he can see those slanted, clear blue eyes narrowed still further in concentration, a stray curl of brilliant auburn hair falling loose against her forehead, a touch at once feather light and razor sharp, a scalpel hidden in dove’s wings._

_Don’t be sorry,_ _meine Geliebte. Ever.’_

 

_The voices changing to a deep, authoritative baritone, the creak of bedsprings as a weight far greater than his own lowers itself onto the mattress._

_‘Go tae your bed, Faith. I’ll sit wi’ him for a bit.’_

_A hand gripping his own, dwarfing him in a warm, calloused safety, anchoring him._

_‘Ye are safe here, a chariad. Ye are whole. All will be well. This I promise.’_

* * *

 

 

A few days later

‘Welcome back.’

 

A dull, rhythmic ache pulses through Albert’s body as he struggles to sit against the bare wood of the headboard, the weight of a small, worn hand clasped lightly in his own.

 

‘W… Where…?’

 

The question is a dry, cracked choke in the back of his throat, rasping against a hot and heavy tongue.

 

‘Lallybroch, _mo chuisle._ Here, drink this,’ a steaming mug of water is pressed into his palm, the soft hints of mint and dried honeysuckle cleansing his dry and aching mouth.

 

The hand reaches behind his head to help him drink; long, light fingers pressing deep into the curve of his skull.

 

‘That better?’

 

He blinks slowly, his vision clearing as the indistinct shapes slowly begin to solidify into a washstand, a door, two straight backed chairs, a window looking out over an indistinct space of greens and browns framed by a cool, grey sky. There is a blaze of purple in the distance, he thinks and the soft, lumbering shapes of sheep slowly picking their way over unwalked ground.   

 

The face behind the voice slowly clears too, merging into the pale, bonny face with blue, slanted cat eyes, a cleft chin and a long, straight nose dusted with freckles. Slowly, she pulls up the chair beside the bed, wood scraping on wood and reaches for his hand.

 

She looks exhausted and he wants to tell her so, the lower lids of her eyes marred with bruising, the finger that slowly reaches to curl itself around a stray lock of hair trembling ever so slightly, but he cannot seem to find the right words.

 

Instead, all he can do is nod.

 

‘Three days,’ she says quietly to his unasked question, her fingers moving lightly over his hand, slowly straightening out the digits against the coverlet.

 

‘There were times…’ She stops, a broken, sobbing breath pulsing from her throat, looking away to the window, where the world is bathed in the soft, cool light left after a night’s rainfall.

 

‘I’m sorry,’ she bites her lip and tries to smile, groping in the pocket of her dress for a handkerchief and his heart cracks at the sight of her dabbing fiercely at the corners of her eyes, biting her lip and trying to laugh and smile at the same time.

 

‘Faith…’

 

Slowly, painfully he tries to reach for her, wanting nothing more than to hold her and wipe away her tears as he had done in their final moments before he had parted from her under the shadowed shelter of the horse chestnut tree in the hospital yard.

 

She shakes her head at him, eyes brimming with unshed tears.

 

 ‘ _A Dhia!_ There were times when I feared the worst for ye. When I kent that it would be best for ye to go, that it was a cruelness keeping you here in the worst of the fever, but I couldna…After nearly losing Da… I _couldn’t_ lose ye too…’

 

Her voice trails off to a tear-stained stop and she sniffs again, reaching for his hand again.

 

‘I’m here now, _mo chuisle,’_ he murmurs quietly, the Gaelic sounding strange and soft against his tongue.

 

Her fingers shiver within his own, the ghosts of a groove where a ring once lay rising through her ring finger.

 

Following his gaze, she shakes her head, tear-stained eyes holding his for a long moment.

 

‘I will tell ye about him, Albert, but no’ yet. Please. Please dinna ask me yet.’

 

He nods silently, but whatever he is going to say next is cut off by the sound of footsteps and a timid rap at the door.

 

‘Come in?’

 

Faith swivels on her haunches to face the door, just in time for Albert to see another red headed girl, younger this time, with the same clear blue, slanted eyes that are encased between high, fine cheekbones.

 

The eyes hold more grey than blue to their irises than Faith’s, but the blazing auburn hair that is alive with notes of roan and russet, copper and cinnabar is the same, plaited into two long, unravelling ropes, the same long nose that is glowing pink at its’ tip.

 

‘Faith, Mam asks if…’

 

The girl stops short at the sight of him, eyes widening as they flick back to her sister.

 

An odd, tight sensation sparks in Albert’s chest as he takes in the girl’s look, the slight raise of her eyebrows, the pieces of a puzzle that has not yet been named flying into place behind her eyes. Unconsciously, Faith’s grip on his hand tightens.

 

‘Brianna, this is Albert. He’ll be staying for a little while.’

 

_Bri-anna._

_A strange, lilting name spoken in such a way to make the word her own._

 

The younger girl nods, a strange, tight smile flickering at the corners of her lips.

 

‘Pleased tae meet ye,’ she blurts, a blaze of heat flooding against her cheekbones.

 

‘And you,’ Albert tries to smile at this fiery little thing who in that moment reminds him so much of Ada as she gives Faith one last searching look before fleeing the room, banging the door behind her.

 

‘She’ll come round,’ he hears Faith murmur, though she is not quite able to keep the tense note from her voice as the clattering of footsteps fading away into silence, busying herself with his pillows, deliberately turning away so that she doesn’t have to look at him.

 

‘Faith…’ The flash of her wrist has just brushed past her elbow as he reaches for it.

 

‘Look at me, _mein Herz,_ ’ he murmurs, the words chafing slightly against his tongue.

 

She does so slowly, troubled and lovely blue eyes brimming again. Slowly, he reaches out to cup her cheek, his thumb slowly stroking away her tears.

 

‘It will be all right? With your family?’

 

Spoken in the clear light of day, the questions sound foolish, childish almost.

 

‘It may take Brianna and Willie some time, but Mam an’ Da… Da especially, I’d hope…’

 

She trails off, moving to sit beside him once more, reaching for his hand, the unspoken words thick and heavy in the space between them.

 

Albert nods, snippets of memory glowing through the dark unknown of the last three days.

 

_A deep, authoritative baritone rich with compassionate concern holding him fast._

_The creaking weight of sagging bedsprings._

_A dark, dense musk pressed close, the throb of a pulse tight in his ear as he struggled to keep his feet._

_And words heard in a brief moment of clear lucidity, words that he doesn’t understand entirely, but ones that he will hold close to his heart for the rest of his days._

_‘Ye are safe, a chariad. Ye are whole. All is well.’_

* * *

The weight of the polished oak of the door is heavy under Albert’s fist as he knocks twice and steps back, feeling strange and self-conscious in the borrowed pull over, shirt and trousers that Faith had found for him, hands clasped firmly behind his back in the passageway that leads to Captain James Fraser’s study.

 

The late afternoon shadows thrown through the long, latticed windows that look out over a rain- washed courtyard are long and low; a cool, grey sun peeping out from a canopy of cloud.

 

‘Aye? Who is it?’

 

‘Albert Peterson… I…’

 

The words stutter off his tongue, the organ feeling strange and unwieldly in his mouth.

 

From where he stands, he can hear the faint hubbub of a family that he is not yet part of, of whose life he has only seen glimpses of.

_Coming down the stairs in the shadowed dusk of the early afternoon, his arm firmly tucked in Faith’s, they had passed William dashing up the stairs alongside them, the small boy who was just growing into himself, careering wildly to a standstill at the sight of this strange new man on his sister’s arm._

_Faith, to her credit, had laughed and made the introductions, William snapping back to his manners and offering his hand to shake, tawny coloured eyes giving Albert a cursory once over._

_Claire, when she had met him in the kitchen had promptly steered him to a chair at the scrubbed Oak table, told William, dragging his feet and hovering the doorway, to clear his comics away and placed a steaming plate of eggs before Albert._

_‘You need feeding up,’ she had said quietly with a nurse’s precision; hazel eyes that are the exact copy of her son’s, flickering to Faith, who nods._

_‘And we’ll do it slowly, bit by bit. William, what have I told you about feeding the dog at the table?’_

_‘But Mam!’_

_‘No buts. Take him out, a chiride. Now.’_

_Dog?_

_And then a large, rough head shoving itself under his free hand; wolfish yellow eyes gleaming as a long snout splits into a lolling grin._

 

_And then the lad scuffed his shoes and sent his mother a black look that Claire simply raised her eyebrows at, arms folded as he called the dog, the lilting language that Albert only knows snatches of, sounding strange and musical to his ears._

_‘Dhòmhsa, Bran! Siuthad!’_

_And the long, loping body of the dog had slid out from under the table, ears pricked, tongue lolling, claws clacking over the tiles, following his master out to glean what they could from the rest of the day._

_Claire had watched them leave; following the slowly fading drum of footsteps along a passageway for a long moment, her tea-towel lying idle in her hands before a far-off door had slammed shut and she had sighed a little sadly and straightened up._

_Albert had watched her, quietly chewing his eggs._

_‘They grow up far too quickly,’ she says at last, as she turns to face him, gleaming, whisky eyes holding an almost wistful expression, a small, sad smile playing on her lips._

_‘One moment they’re bairns and safe in your arms and the next, they’re running out to face the world without a care for what they could find.’_

_He had nodded slowly, thinking of Ada and how she had been a little girl of six with her corn blonde hair in two thick ropes down her back, chewing her lip in concentration as she practiced diligently at her Chopin when he'd left for Scotland._

_The forgotten tea towel slips from her fingers, puddling in a heap on the bare, scraped wood, as she moves slowly to place a hand on his shoulder._

_‘I hope for your sake, that you can find a family here, Albert. That we can be your family.’_

_Her whisky coloured eyes are soft in a pale face framed by a curtain of dark, chaotic curls, the hand that rests on his shoulder, gentle in its’ touch._

_‘Danke,’ he had whispered, choked up emotion making him slip back into his childhood Deutsche, not sure how to truly convey to her how much he means it and reaches out a hand for his tea._

The creak of the door opening brings him back to the present with a start and he jumps to attention, mortified at being found at ease.

 

The man who stands in the doorway is impossibly tall and thin in a body that still looks ill at ease at wearing civilian’s clothes.

 

Clear blue, slanted eyes narrow for a moment as they fall on Albert, before a smile begins to creep into the corner of his lips and he nods, pushing the door wide to give him entrance.

 

‘Come in, _a chariad,’_ he murmurs, his voice soft and lilting over the strange syllables that sound like poetry to Albert’s ears.

 

The study is small and densely furnished with a fireplace taking up most of the north wall. A writing desk sits to one side of a large, slashed window, looking out over a large expanse of gravel terrace and a sloping, border that leads down to a sliver of dark water off in the distance.

 

A row of leather bound books lines the windowsill, their titles picked out in faded gold leaf.

 

On the desk in the corner of the room, Albert makes out a stack of papers, a lopsided clay pot containing a single fountain pen and a dark, Cherrywood frame with a photograph of a couple framed by a church archway that is festooned in honeysuckle, holding a peacefully sleeping baby swaddled in a lace embroidered christening gown.

 

‘Is… Is that…?’

 

His voice sounds intrusively loud in this quietly sacred space, turning wide eyes to his host.

 

‘Aye,’ Jamie Fraser nods, crossing the room in two strides from the fireplace.

 

‘That was Faith’s christening. Good as gold, she was, despite the eleven hour journey up from Sandhurst. I’d begged my CO to let me have the time on leave and by the grace of God, he consented. ‘Twas a beautiful day as well, as I recall.’

 

Jamie’s voice is soft, his eyes gleaming at the memory. Looking up at him, Albert can just make out a flicker of the young man who had guided his young wife and their precious cargo from the church, both beaming at the promise of their new life together as a family gleaming out from this proud, battered warrior standing before him.

 

‘A drink perhaps?’

 

Albert nods mutely, watching him cross to the drink’s cabinet and pull of two cut glasses and a decanter full of swirling amber liquid that tinkles as Jamie pours two small measures and hands Albert his.

 

‘Have a seat, lad,’ he says at last, swallowing visibly as he offers Albert one of the low slung back green velvet armchair, settling his long limbs into the other, raising his glass.

 

‘ _Slainte mhath!’_

 

The words ring deep and old and true; sparking distant, hazy memories of his father toasting his mother thus, thought long forgotten, into Albert’s memory as their glasses chink together.

 

He sees his host’s smile widen as he watches him take a sip of whisky; the fiery liquid burning an oddly comforting warmth into the back of his throat.

 

‘I’d forgotten,’ he murmurs slowly, taking another sip.

 

‘What?’

 

‘Everything,’ Albert shakes his head at the notion, it is a foolish thought, but one he cannot rid himself of.

 

‘My Father was a Scot, by birth,’ he pauses there, twisting the glass over and over between his fingers, eyes flicking up to search his host’s face. The broad chiselled features remain impassive, only a flicker of something that he cannot read sparking behind the wide, slanted eyes, the third and fourth fingers of his right-hand twitching slightly against the dark green material of the chair’s arm.

 

‘He emigrated to Germany when he was twenty-five to look for a girl whom he’d fallen in love with, whom he’d met in Glasgow. She’d left her job as a secretary in Glasgow to care for her ageing parents back in Germany. He found her, after months of searching and asked her to marry him, if she wished it. Captain… Jamie… Faith’s told me a little of what you endured at the hands of the men that call my country their home and please believe me when I say that I am not one of them. What they did…’

 

The breath of a shadow flickers over the older man’s face, his right- hand tightening against the arm of his chair, the stiff fingers juddering against the worn fabric, but Albert doesn’t see it.

 

‘I won’t say that I’ve endured half of what you have seen, but I have marched. I have watched men who could have been saved so many times over had I been granted medical supplies, die in needless darkness. I have wept and prayed and loved and endured because the love for your daughter was the one thing that kept me alive.’

 

He pauses for breath, wincing as the wound in his side seizes against the bandages.

 

Jamie nods silently, fingers now steepled over the rim of his half -drunk glass, the blue eyes shadowed with something that Albert cannot name.

 

It is a shadowed something that flares at the base of his own soul, something that later will he think of as recognition, as release.

 

‘Faith told me ye are an army doctor,’ he says at last; ghosts that could not be named crowding at the corners of his vision for just an instant, ‘that ye served with her at Broch Mordha during the war. That you left…’

 

‘I left Scotland to serve in my home country, just as the war was ending,’ Albert interjects quickly, sitting as straight as his injury can allow, wincing as the broken skin tightens against the bandages.

 

‘Sir, please believe me that I never intended to do your daughter harm. I left because I feared that people would talk. But you must believe that her diligence, her need to work and heal and care, to _heal_ even when she could not, has brought me through more than I care to recall. She’s a fine healer, sir. You should be proud of her.’

 

‘Aye,’ Jamie murmurs quietly, the word almost lost in the depths of his glass. When he looks up again, his eyes are very wide and bright, staring into the heart of Albert’s soul. ‘I am that. Thank ye for your honesty, Albert. It means a great deal tae me and, I think, tae Faith.’

 

Albert nods slowly, his throat aching, suddenly exhausted and strangely elated by it all.

 

They finish their drams as the blazing death of the setting sun burns low over the lawn. Just as the warmth of the study is about to lull him to sleep, Albert hears the creak of the door opening and feels the warm weight of a hand slipping into his.

 

‘I thought that you’d be down here,’ Faith’s voice is soft, her head nestled against his knee, gaze flickering from him to her father, dozing in his chair; the dying sun burning in her curls. 

 

‘Are you all right?’

 

‘Yes, _meine Geliebte_ ,’ he murmurs back, twisting a stray strand of hair lazily around his fingers, relishing in the weight of her; real and warm and whole as she leans against him.

 

‘Never better.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please feel free to read and review! Comments, suggestions, constructive criticisms etc are like chocolate to my brain!
> 
> Much love and enjoy x
> 
> German and Gaelic translations 
> 
> Tha sin gu leòr, cù. Tha sin gu leòr = That's enough dog. That's enough
> 
> mein Herz = my heart
> 
> ‘Bi sàmhach = be quiet


	26. I Just Want You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Frasers’ quiet existence at Lallybroch is shattered by the arrival of a telegram and leaves Faith and Albert with the need to address a very important question

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to read and review this story! Your feedback and support is utterly invaluable and means the world to me!

**May 1946**

 

The next few days pass in a blur of moments that, when Albert looks back at them, are some of the happiest of his life as spring slowly slips, once again, into a soft, hazy summer.

 

They are days listening to the babble of Faith with her siblings, of spending the last evening hours sat in the shade of a wizened field maple down by the loch shore.

 

Evenings spent watching the soft death of the light on the water, their fingers barely brushing against each other as she tells him the ancient stories of her childhood, legends of selkies and sea spirits that he had almost forgotten, that are older than the hills themselves.

 

Evenings that turn into meals sat at the scrubbed kitchen table, listening to the heavy, lyrical rumble of Jamie’s voice as he pronounces the Gaelic grace over the meal; the lamps soft and low against the pressing darkness of the kitchen windows looking out over the laundry green. Evenings where their fingers tingle just for the others’ touch; reaching, grasping for the other under the safety of the table.

 

They are days spent with William, who takes a cautious shine to this new arrival into his family, drawing up plans for a new tree house, Bran’s head a heavy, comforting weight on his knee; yellow eyes softly gleaming up at him. Days that end with bashed fingers and splinters and bruises, the boy’s face shining as plank by plank, nail by nail, the ghosts of the old tree house are stripped away and a new one is slowly erected in its’ place.

 

_‘It’ll be the biggest tree house ever, won’t it Albert?’ William’s hair is tousled and breathless, eyes shining through flushed pink cheeks. They had reluctantly left their work when the sun had finally sunk below the back of the moor and the light was too poor to see their hands before them._

 

_‘It will,’ he had replied, unable to supress a grin at the boy’s face, turning shining eyes to Faith who grins back in silent reply._

 

They are glimpses of Brianna, her slanted eyes narrowed with a strange mistrust, floating through the house like a _sidhie,_ making Claire sigh and shake her head sadly as she turns back to kneading her bread dough.

 

‘ _I’m sure that she doesn’t she mean it, Albert,’ Claire had said quietly, when he had asked if he had done anything to offend the girl. For a moment, the large whisky coloured eyes had shone with something that he could not read, but it was gone before he truly registered it._

 

_‘She’s frightened, I think. Frightened that you’ll take Faith away from us. From her.’_

 

_And on his way to the North Bedroom, that had, by unspoken consent, become his own, Albert had paused at Brianna’s bedroom door and knocked once, stepping back into the quiet._

 

_‘Who is it?’_

 

_Her voice had been faint and muffled and he had swallowed thickly, trying to find the right words._

 

_‘It’s Albert.’_

 

_A scuffle of bedclothes, the scrape and squeak of a chair being pushed across a carpet., the thud of it as it hits the door._

 

_‘You’re no' coming in!’_

 

_‘Brianna,’ he swallows, exhaling slowly as he leans against the door._

 

_‘If I have offended you at all, then, please, let me put it to rights, as best I can. Will you allow me to do that?’_

 

_A tentative sniff from the other side of the door, the evening light casting long shadows from the skylight above Albert’s head._

 

_The scrape of a chair being pulled back._

 

_The door creaking open just an inch and a pale, dishevelled face that is blotched red with tears peers out into the gloom._

 

_‘What d’ye want?’_

 

_Her eyes had narrowed at the sight of him, eyes dancing furtively along the passageway, to check if the coast was clear. The same eyes had then fixed him with a direct, blue look that reminds him uncannily of her father._

 

_‘I,’ he had swallowed thickly then, the heat of her gaze, making all the confidence that he’d felt on his way up from supper, melt into a puddle of anxiety in the pit of his stomach._

 

_‘I want tae… Tae apologise if I’ve offended ye in any way. Tae ask… ‘_

 

_Two raised eyebrows followed by a masterful sniff and she detaches herself from the safety of the door, standing before him, arms crossed over her chest._

 

_The swell of budding breasts catching against the cotton of her dress, her head held high as she had watched him with a silent, imperious grace that felt painfully at odds with her white, blotched face and streaming eyes._

 

_‘Tae ask for your forgiveness If you think that I’m taking Faith away from ye. Tae tell ye that…’_

 

_‘Tell me that ye love her?’_

 

_The words had been spat in a mocking laugh that echoed in the space between them._

 

_‘Johnny said that… An’ he left her when she plucked up the courage tae tell him about her love for ye, said she was a good-for-nothing trollop who’d deceived him. Said that he would sully our name from here to Beauly if he could an’ then…’_

 

_She had trailed off, all haughty dignity forgotten, hugging herself against an unknown chill._

 

_‘Brianna.’ She had looked up at him from streaming eyes, dragging an impatient hand back across her face._

 

_‘I would never do that to your sister. Ever. My love for her kept me alive when nothing else could and I hope, I know, I that I can do right by her. I can promise ye that.’_

 

_‘Can ye?’ She had looked at him dubiously, assessing him in the same silent way that William had when they had first met on the stairs._

 

_‘I can. I can also pinky promise, if ye’d like? Sanctify it?’_

 

_A slow smile had cracked over her lips then, her tear-stained eyes lit up with a childish glee that reminded him so much of Ada when he’d left her for Scotland, that he had thought that his heart would break._

 

_Holding his gaze all the time, she had shot out her right pinky, hooking it neatly around his own._

 

_He had squeezed tightly and held on; listening to the thrum of a pulse dense under his fingers, unable not to smile at the sudden flush of joy that has burst against her features as she considers their wordless pact._

 

_They had remained there for a long moment, listening to the creak and sigh of the house around them._

 

_Listening to Claire call to Jamie about something, to the slam of the door and Bran’s booming, welcoming bark._

 

_‘That’ll be Faith,’ spoken in unison, unsure why they need to as she had caught his gaze and grinned a little shyly, dipping her eyes away._

 

_‘Can we be friends now?’ He asked slowly, as she released her finger from his._

 

_‘Aye. I suppose we can’, she said slowly, her attention already fixed on the distant figure of her sister, before she had slipped out from under his arm and left him with the smallest of smiles._

 

 

* * *

The afternoon is just beginning, the endless expanse of sky a soft blue flecked with tumbling, shifting clouds.

 

The air is crisp and cool to Albert’s lungs, a thin, hazy sheen of heat shimmering over the golden sheaths of tussock grass as he and Jamie push on across the moor.

 

They walk in companionable silence for the most part, his host’s stride taking on the long, loping gait of a seasoned hill walker that ate up the miles, stopping occasionally to catch his breath or else whistle for Bran, who has plunged on ahead. Albert cannot help but cast a furtive glance at Jamie when this happens, biting his lip in worry as his doctor’s ear takes in the ragged inhale and gasping exhale for breath and forcefully shoves his diagnosis to the back of his mind.

 

Faith had told him a little of what had happened when her father had been released from the processing hospital in Le Havre, desperately malnourished and suffering from acute, active TB.

 

‘ _He… He’d cough and thrash and couldna catch his breath and greet like a wean for his mam, though she… She died when he was a lad about the same age as William,’ her eyes had been distant as they had sat on the loch shore, watching the soft, evening light play in dappled pools against the black water._

_His fingers had been curled in her hair, her head pillowed against his shoulder; the hard, clucking call of a moorhen piercing through the shadows. She had sighed and buried closer, a hand reaching up to grip his own._

_‘The doctors... The doctors said that he’d have it for the rest o’ his life an’ that it could come back at any time an’ I canna… I canna go through that again, Albert…’_

_Wide, blue eyes that he loves with all his heart had held his for a long moment, wide and distant with memories that she could not give names to._

_Knows all too well that knot of fear that tied itself in the stomach of any medical staff’s stomach when the news that a loved one had been referred to the hospital. Cannot imagine the weight of the knot that had tightened against Faith’s heart and only now is beginning to be released._

_And suddenly, he had seen just how young she had looked in that moment, how she had looked when he had first come across her, kneeling beside Ebren Krause, clutching a bloodied cloth between cold, steady hands, her apron stained a shocking scarlet, her hair frazzled from under her cap._

_‘You won’t have to,_ _meine Geliebte,‘_ _he had whispered, pulling her close and resting his chin against the crown of her tangled curls, fixing his gaze on the hazy outpost of the island, festooned with pockets of shocking pink rhododendron splashed against a dense, dark green._

_Her answering sigh had been a broken, whispered thing, lost in the dusky, evening quiet._

‘Ye can see it all from up here,’ Jamie’s voice pulls him out of his musings sharply, the world flooding back so quickly that he reels against the force of the impact, feet catching over loosened shingle.

 

Righting himself slowly, Albert blinks to see his host with his back to him, facing the vast expanse of sky. The cliff drops away into the densely thick undergrowth of gorse and heather; clusters of tussock grass and primroses and pink champions bursting out in a rainbow of colour against the sparse, tawny coloured earth.

 

 The long tails of Jamie’s oilskin flap about the shades of green and black that make up the tartan of his kilt, his face caught and flushed with the chill of the wind. The sun is low and soft in the clouds, the shadows long as they dip over the hill, bathing him in a soft, washed light.

 

Watching him from side-on profile, Albert can see the Laird of the old stories shining through this rugged, broken soldier with his carved horn walking stick, his crown of auburn curls catching with fires of copper, cinnabar, roan and russet, the long straight nose and firm mouth surveying his hard-won lands. From the cover of the undergrowth, Bran pads forward, tongue lolling, jaws cracked in a smile, claws sending small flurries of stones scurrying down the path, butting his nose under his master’s free hand.

 

Far away in the distance, the long, loping shadows of the hills rear up against the horizon, densely shadowed in muted grey and black. A scar of silver slices across the horizon, jagging itself through the dark expanse of uncovered ground.

 

Below them, the house sits snuggly surrounded by the cluster of outbuildings; the great Scots Pine that shelters the laundry green, just visible. It rears up to meet the hills that fall away onto rolling moors and up onto Kirk Hill and into the snug bowl of Broch Mordha with the long, rugged, white road stretching out into the great beyond.

 

‘I used tae dream of this when I could sleep,’ his voice is hushed, caught out on the breath of the wind, his fingers digging into Bran’s skull. The dog pushes his head up at the pressure; a soft, low whine rumbling in the back of his throat as he licks his master’s palm in silent, canine sympathy.

 

Albert nods quietly, moving slowly so they stand shoulder to shoulder, watching the shadowed light dance over a landscape that Jamie knows as intimately as the back of his hand, that Albert is only just beginning to understand.

 

‘In the darkness o’ the huts… Or, no, before that. ‘Twas in the quiet before we had the first surrender an’ all ye could hear was the ragged gasp o’ the man beside ye as the bucket was passed round for your valuables, ye had a moment. A minute tae think, tae remember all that was. Remember all that might never be the same again.’ He pauses; a slow, ragged breath aching in the stillness.

 

Albert remains quiet, heart numb, waiting.

 

 ‘An’ then, after the shock and ye’d been forced awa, when the men had quieted their greetin’ an’ ye couldna hear the screams of those who’d fallen foul o’ the guards already, I’d try and come back. Come back and stand up here, looking out,’ his voice is so quiet that at first Albert thinks that he hasn’t heard him.

 

‘An’ then,’ Jamie shivers; a shudder that has nothing to do with the cold rippling through him.

 

‘When the time came to march and we were forced tae walk till our feet bled an’ our tongues lolled black in our mouths for want o’ water or warmth, when even the thought o’ Claire and the bairns couldna warm me, it was the only thing that kept me going. Kept me walking, though there was naught tae walk to, bar the prod o’ a rifle in yer back if ye didna obey. Kept me from throwing my boots away intae the snow and fallin’ out o’ line.’

 

‘D’ye ken what I mean?’ Sharp, blue eyes turn to him, holding his gaze intently for a long moment and Albert nods, because he knows.

 

He knows because the one thing that had kept him alive as the truck full of men who could so easily be saved had he had access to sanitary conditions and decent medical supplies had rumbled and juddered over Germany’s broken roads, the shadows of a ruined country rearing black against the walls, had been the thought of Faith.

 

The thought of those clear, blue eyes, of that touch at once sharp and tender, had kept him sane as the blood of his countrymen had dried black over his hands and all had felt lost and hopeless.

 

‘I know’, he murmurs. ‘It keeps you from going mad, inside.’

 

Jamie nods quietly, his face still turned towards the sharp, soft light of the horizon and Albert watches, the older man’s shoulders sag under the weight of an exhale.

 

‘Mad indeed,’ he murmurs quietly, fingers tightening against Bran’s skull.

 

‘There were times when all I could do was breathe. Day after day, week after week, when men who were little more than boys were dying all about me and all I could feel was numbness settling over my soul.’

 

‘I do’, Albert replies, remembering all too well the hours spent sitting in the library of the Zittau-Görlitz university, listening to the creak of the winged buttresses sagging under the weight of the wind.

_Remembering the chill that had crept into the marrow of his bones as he had sat by the smoking brazier, lit with the last of the old newspapers, the priceless first editions of Hegel and Hoffman, Hardenburg and Shlegel bound in their fine morocco leather with their marbled endplates and gilded titles awaiting their turn to be fodder to the fire._

_Remembers the weight of the men’s groans echoing through his ears as they thrashed about in makeshift beds, the wards divided by the heavy, maroon velvet curtains that had once shielded the scholars from the curious glances of passers-by._

_Remembers the aching pangs of hunger that soon dulled into a constant throb in the pit of his stomach._

_Remembers the grunts and cries of the men as the truck had plunged into the rough and broken road, the weight of wasted lives slipping through his hands like the blood that had caked his skin._

Overhead, the sun slowly slips behind a cloud, a ripple of a breeze scurrying over the undergrowth.

 

Far below, Albert is able to make out the back kitchen door opening and a figure coming out, balancing a basket of laundry on their hip.

 

‘I remember...’ The words are out before Albert can stop them.

 

‘Aye?’

 

Sharp blue eyes hold his own; the broad, handsome face shadowed as the sun slips behind a cloud.

 

‘I remember when the trucks were making their way back through Germany wi’ men trying to make their escape out of a country that didn’t exist anymore and…’

 

They have begun walking without any conscious decision to, the ground falling away as Jamie leads the way back down the hill to the sun-shadowed undergrowth.

 

Ducking under a low hanging field maple tree and watching Bran’s long, brindled body disappear into the distance, Albert tries to gather his thoughts into coherent sentences.

 

‘And there were men, men who could have been saved so easily had I been given medical supplies- The university had been bombed on the evening before we fled,’ he pauses, eyes slipping shut as he tries to force the memories of the mangled arms and legs that they had recovered from the wreckage- the limbs pale and grey in the weak, dawn light, the scraps of clothing, the books and boxes of bandages, the morphine supplies and glass syringes, all scattered about in a deadly detritus of death, away from the forefront of his mind.

 

‘It was your daughter, Captain Fraser. The memory of her, at least, that kept me alive during those moments.’

 

Beside him, Jamie lets out a long, long whistle through his teeth and tightens his grip on the walking stick; a large, weatherworn hand resting lightly on Albert’s shoulder. The touch is soft and secure all at once and Albert glances up, to see the slanted blue eyes distant, gazing out towards the hulking, purple shadows of the hills beyond.

 

‘Ye’ll do brawly by her, lad,’ he murmurs, the words spoken almost to himself, the grip of those battle worn fingers soft against the fabric of the old jacket that Faith had found for Albert.

 

‘Ye’ll do brawly.’

 

* * *

 

 

The quiet, unassuming existence that Albert has found at Lallybroch is shattered a week later by the arrival of a crisp, yellow telegram that is pressed into Faith Fraser’s hands by a boy who cannot be older than sixteen.

 

‘Reply?’

 

She turns the yellow paper over between her fingers, trying not to remember the way that her Mother had stood on the front steps for hours in the first, frightening days after aunt Jenny had broken the news of the 51stDivision’s capture, waiting for the customary chime of the bell as the bicycle weaved its’ way up the drive.

 

The postmark is from Broch Mordha Hospital, the paper still relatively crisp.

 

‘None, thank you,’ she breathes out slowly, trying to lessen the knot of anxiety that has deposited itself in her stomach and reaches for her purse to pay for the boy’s customary 2-/6. When she smooths the skirt of her uniform down, there are damp patches when her hands have been.

 

‘Ta, miss,’ he murmurs, pushing off from the driveway and tipping his cap as he peddles back down onto the road.

 

She doesn’t know how long she stands there, the paper still between numb fingers.

 

‘Faith? What is it, _mo chuisle_?’

 

The weight of Albert’s hand in hers, makes her start and look around, to see him watching her with a queer, curious expression gracing his sharp, dark features, eyes widening as he takes in the telegram clutched in her hands and then flicking back to her, something strange and dark falling into place.

 

‘I dinna ken, Albert,’ she says quietly. ‘It’s from Broch Mordha Hospital. Ye dinna think…’

 

He nods gravely, the weight of his hand in hers tightening as he does so, the weight of her unfinished sentence hanging heavily in the air between them.

 

_Ebren._

‘Let’s go inside and see what it says. When does your shift start?’

 

‘Not ‘til this evening. But, Albert, ye canna mean it…?’

 

She draws back, searching his face, hoping to find something that tells her that he’s wrong, that his suspicions are nothing more than fiction and the tall, Aryan blond boy with the shattered jaw isn’t…

 

‘Yes, but I hope to God that I’m wrong. Come on, _meine Geliebte,_ let’s go inside now.’

 

Slowly, they make their way back through the hall, the light shadowed and dusky after the glare of the early summer sun outside.

 

The soft prattle of voices reaches them as they make their way through the hall and down the passageway to the kitchen. Faith’s heart sinks as she hears the soft lilt of Aunt Jenny’s voice and the deep, rich timbre of Uncle Ian, who have come to stay for a few days without the children.

 

Almost unconsciously, Faith tightens her grip in Albert’s hand, making him look down at her in surprise.

 

‘Do we… Do we have to read it in the kitchen? With everyone…?’

 

He smiles a little sadly at her then and squeezes her hand, his grip firm and reassuring in her own.

 

‘I’ll be with you, _meine weiße Taube,‘_ he murmurs quietly, drawing her close to press his lips against the crown of her skull. She shivers slightly at his touch, a thrill that she cannot name rippling down her spine.

 

‘Faith! We were wondering where ye were!’ Faith has not even put a hand to the door knob before she is engulfed by William, his crown of auburn curls a tousled mop, golden eyes gleaming as he flashes Albert a toothy smile before grabbing his sister’s hand and pulling her inside.

 

Albert follows slowly, feeling the soft flood of warmth and safety that he always feels when entering the Lallybroch kitchen permeate his bones; the smells of freshly baked bread, herbs and peat flooding his senses, nodding to Jamie who is stood at the table with a tiny, black haired woman at his elbow, bent over what appears to be an old map.

 

Ian glances up with mild interest at Albert; dark, hazel coloured eyes as kind as his smile as he nods in silent recognition to an unasked question. Albert dips his head in reply, the first hurdle of this unknown territory safely crossed.

 

‘What have ye got there, Faith?’

 

Brianna is sat at the other end, head bobbing up from her sketchbook, eyes gleaming with interest.

 

‘A telegram. From Broch Mordha hospital,’ the younger girl’s eyes widen a little at that as Claire, sat with a pile of mending gives a dark, meaningful look and she quietens, bending her head back to her books.

 

‘Can you read it?’ Slowly, settled on the kitchen sofa, hoping that they will be soon forgotten about, she passes the crinkled yellow paper over to Albert.

 

He nods mutely, a lump in his throat that will not go away making speech momentarily impossible.

 

The paper crinkles with the warmth from her hand and he has to take a steadying breath to calm himself before he can bear to show her.

 

**Faith. (STOP.) Fraser. (STOP.) Lallybroch. (STOP.) To the next of kin. (STOP) Of Pilot. (STOP) Ebren. (STOP) Adalric. (STOP) Krause. (STOP) The above requests. (STOP) Your presence. (STOP.) At Broch Mordha Hospital (STOP.) Immediately. (STOP.)**

 

‘He’s asking for us?’ Her eyes are wide as they take in the firm, black letter, of them so painfully final in their tone.

 

_And he knows that she is thinking of those terrifying hours back in 1942, when she had knelt on the floor of Ward A, hands pressed firmly against the blood pumping from the pilot’s chest, desperately trying to keep him alive._

_Knows that she’s remembering, as he is, the weight of the young German pilot falling into her arms, his shattered jaw gaping wide through soiled and slipping bandages; the large, safe Aryan eyes slits of unimaginable pain._

 

Faith’s voice comes out as a squeak, barely audible as she stares at Albert, eyes wide in a suddenly pale face. A curl has come loose from her hair pins, a sheath of gleaming auburn that he twists round his finger, drawing her close.

 

‘He is,’ inhaling heavily, he holds her gaze, drinking in the soft, dimples in her cheeks, the cleft to her chin, the tiny wings clinging to her ears. ‘We should go, _mo chuisle.’_

‘Aye. We should.’

 

* * *

 

 

The bicycle ride from Lallybroch to Broch Mordha is one done in silence.

 

Albert borrows Jamie’s bicycle, an old RacCycle Pace Maker, though the name means nothing to him.

 

All he can think of is Ebren; of the clammy hands that he had clung to in the shadowed darkness of the truck and then in the shadowed darkness of the _Panacea,_ listening to the thin, wavering thread of a pulse that had jumped and quavered under his fingers.

 

_If they were too late…_

 

Ahead of him, Faith pedals resolutely on, the linen tails of her cap caught and streaming in the breeze.

 

They weave their way through the green tunnel that leads onto the vast expanse of the moor, the light shadowed and dappled with specks of sun filtering through the cascading leaves of the field maples that bend and twist their trunks to create this soft, green haven.

 

Through the green tunnel, they go, the bicycle tyres bouncing up onto the long, white road that cuts through the moor and down to the village.

 

Albert can just make out the fiery stream of Faith’s hair tumbling loose from her nurse’s cap, her hands clenched and white over the handlebars as she swerves to avoid a soft patch in the road.

 

Together, they swoop down the hill towards the village, the sun peeking out from behind a cloud, bathing the world in a soft, grey light, the bicycles bumping down onto the cobbles.

 

They are streets that hold soft moments of memory for Albert as Faith leads him in the slow climb onto the main street. They push the bicycles in silence past the schoolyard that he had passed every morning on his way to the hospital, the ghosts of the children’s laughter floating down through years of stone, and past Mrs Pearson’s tearoom, until the large, swooping branches of the horse chestnut tree that shelters the hospital yard become visible.

 

‘ _Dinna weep for me,_ _meine weiße Taube,‘_ _he’d whispered, cupping her chin and thumbing away her tears._

_The soft, March light had dappled through the leaves of the horse chestnut tree, the rumble of traffic and the shriek of children on their break fading away into nothingness as they had clung to each other, clinging to a love that neither of them knew existed._

‘Are ye all right, Albert? Ye look a tad peely-wally,’ Faith is beside him before he knows that he’s stopped walking, the bicycle resting against his leg, her hand lightly gripping his elbow, eyes wide and dark with concern.

 

‘I’m fine,’ he swallows after a moment, fixing his gaze on the large, grey stone building ahead of them, trying to lessen the knot of panic that has lodged itself in his stomach., trying not to think about what they will find when they enter the hospital.

 

 ‘Shall we?’

 

She nods, swallowing visibly as she tucks her hair back under her cap, smooths down her skirt and reaches for his hand.

 

* * *

 

 

‘Nurse Fraser! You’re not expected here ‘til noon!’

 

A sharp, insistent voice greets them as the sound of hurried footsteps ring off the parquet floor.

 

The corridor is just as Albert remembers it, with its’ pale cream walls and dark green curtains giving the place the eerie sensation of being submerged underwater.

 

The sharp, carbolic scent that has haunted Albert’s dreams for so long hits him full in the face and would have sent him reeling, had Faith’s hand not been firmly clasped in his.

 

From beyond the double doors at the end of the corridor, he can just make out the swish of the nurses’ grey uniforms, the swing of white coats, the wobble of oxygen and blood bags attached to the spindly IV poles.

 

It is like a _corps de ballet,_ he thinks, every doctor, nurse and orderly in tune with everyone else’s movements, a rhymic, soft-spoken dance against death.

 

The silence is strangely comforting to him as he stands there, watching the portly figure of a QA nurse whom he doesn’t remember, perfect the art of speed walking without breaking into a run towards them, her long white cap flowing out behind her. She has a TPR chart tucked under her arm, her mouth set in a grim line as sharp, hazel eyes take in Faith, standing in her hospital uniform, hours before she’s needed.

 

‘I’m sorry, Sister Gregory. I…We… A telegram came to Lallybroch about a patient… Krause… He’s German…’

 

She babbles to a sham-faced stop and glances helplessly at Albert.

 

Slowly and choosing his words with care, he clears his throat. His accent slowly slips into the sweet, rolling lilt of the west Highlands as he begins to speak, digging into his coat pocket for the telegram that he knows by heart already.

 

‘Sister, my name’s Doctor Peterson. I worked here for a few years during the war and have only recently returned due to unforeseen circumstances. The patient was under my supervision and has put myself and Nurse Fraser down as next of kin. Wil ye permit us to see him?’

 

Sister Gregory reads the telegram in silence, lines of worry pinching against the bridge of her nose.

 

‘He was transferred to us three days ago with a high fever, which we think was a consequence of a poor reaction to the reconstruction surgery on his jaw and the possibility of a brain haemorrhage,’ she pauses here and eyes them both carefully.

 

_Haemorrhage._

_If that was the case, then there was no hope for him._

_Not now._

The word sinks into Albert’s heart like a knife, twisting around the vital organ with agonising pain.

 

Somewhere, he can hear Faith’s voice, but can’t make out the words.

 

‘He’s in one of the private rooms to decrease the risk of spreading infection to the other patients, room 56. Near Ward B. You can have ten minutes.’

 

‘Thank ye, Nurse,’ Faith murmurs and Albert nods, the lump in his throat making it impossible to speak. The smile that Nurse Gregory sends them in reply does not quite meet her eyes.

 

Room 56 is near the end of a long corridor on the third floor, the branches of the horse chestnut tree, softening the harsh, electric light as they make their way slowly towards it.

 

The door is ajar, a grey bulk of a nurse bent over a single bed, which rustles slightly at the sound of Faith’s knock.

 

Albert can just see a single table with a lamp and a vase of harebells on a small tresle table next to a water jug, a glass and a small pile of cloths that looks out over the yard and two straight backed wooden chairs, one on either side of the bed.

 

‘There now, is that better?’

 

‘Ja...Dankeschön.‘

 

Each word is a struggled, whispered rasp, the tug of impending death clawing at Albert’s heart. He has heard that rasp, that breathy gurgle of air that began deep in the back of the larynx, far too many times and, selfishly perhaps, does not wish to hear it now.

 

‘Who is it?’

 

‘The nurse is a tall, thin figure with sharp, grey eyes and a hooked nose that makes her look like a moulting vulture.

 

‘I’m sorry to disturb ye, Sister Beaton, but.. I received a telegram this morning regarding Ebren Krause urgently requesting the presence of myself and Doctor Peterson here. Sister Gregory gave us permission…’

 

The older nurse straightens upright, eyes dark and steady as she takes in Faith.

 

From behind her bulk, there is a faint, disbelieving noise from the bed and Albert finds himself reaching automatically for Faith’s shoulder, something that he can’t explain tightening in his chest.

 

‘Och, well, if it’s from _Sister Gregory_ then, I suppose I canna stop ye, can I, Nurse Fraser?

 

Her voice is sharp with a Lowland twang to it, a tone of masked dislike lacing her words, but Faith shows no sign of hearing it at all. Instead, she lifts her chin and fixes the older woman with a look that is so reminiscent of her father that Albert has to bite back a smile.

 

The small, grey eyes flick back to the figure in the bed for a moment; the shallow rasp of every laboured breath filling the silence like a fog.

 

‘Ye can have five minutes. He’s very close.’

 

‘ _Taing gu socair,’_ Faith murmurs quietly, making the older woman raise her eyebrows, lips pursing together for a brief moment before she marches away, the tails of her cap swishing as she walks.

 

 _‘Seann ghille,’_ Faith mutters with uncharacteristic malice when the older nurse is out of sight.  

 

Albert nods, momentarily distracted by the figure on the bed who is shifting restlessly at the sound of their voices.

 

‘Nurse… Nurse Fraser… Is that…?’

 

The words come out as a painful croak that makes Faith whirl, eyes widening as she crosses the space from door to bed in a single stride.

 

The pale, handsome face is a cool, blue-grey colour that twists at Albert’s heart, a heavy sheen of sweat catching at the high, handsome forehead and for a moment, he is exactly as he remembers him four years ago, young and handsome and about to die.

 

The wide, blue eyes are distant, mazy with pain and fatigue, swimming out from under the swathes of bandages that keep the shattered jaw in place.

 

Slowly, Faith moves towards the bed; a silent question blooming in her gaze. He nods, watching her slowly sit in the recently vacated chair, reaching for the young man’s hand.

 

‘It’s me, Ebren. It’s Nurse Fraser. Albert’s here, too.’ Her voice is choked and tender with love and worry as she squeezes the long, frail fingers that lie flat on the coverlet between her own.

 

‘Faith’, he murmurs, his voice soft and distant, changing slowly as death begins its’ final approach. ‘You were so… So brave… Kneeling by me… Keeping death from coming when I wasn’t… ’ The words tail off into a choking coughing fit and Albert crosses the room and pours the boy a glass of water, cupping his hand behind the young man’s head to help him drink.

 

‘Here, _mein Freund,_ drink this.’

 

_He doesn’t need the weight of the skull, the coarse scrape of hair follicles across his palm to be reminded of the last time that he had held Ebren thus, propped up against the wall of the truck, his palms slick and stained with blackened blood as the truck rumbled and juddered its’ way through a broken country._

 

‘I… I couldna be otherwise, Ebren,’ Faith’s voice is broken in the quiet, all dignity forgotten as she squeezes the young German’s hands, tethering him to a life that they all know will soon be over.

 

‘Thank you,’ he murmurs, the clouded blue eyes slipping shut; a long, low sigh passing through the bandaged hole of his mouth.

 

With a calmness that surprises him, Albert reaches over Faith’s hand to feel for a pulse, finding it slow and laboured against the young man’s neck.

 

The clouded blue eyes crack open at the pressure, something strange flaring in the depths of the deep, dark pupils for just a moment. Albert continues asserting the pressure, flicking his eyes to Faith who shakes her head, eyes wide.

 

‘ _You found her, comrade. After all… All that happened… I … I am glad for you. God be with you both.’_

A final, rattled exhale, a last, desperate squeeze of his hand, that is a ghost of a grip now and the light that Albert will always remember, is finally extinguished, the hand clasped in Faith’s, going limp.

 

Slowly, he reaches over to slip the young man’s eyes shut and pull the coverlet up and over his head, watching the capped head beside him bend as she crosses herself.

 

He doesn’t hear the knock at the door, only looks up in time to see the dark bulk of Sister Gregory, her lips pursed and ready for what Albert imagines to be a tirade of disapproval.

 

Her eyes go instantly to the bed, her expression unchanging as she takes in the body, which hours before was a living, breathing boy, clinging to life by a thread.

 

They soften as she takes in Faith, still sat, head bent, her hands clasped firmly in her lap.

 

‘Ye were with him?’

 

Her tone is gentle, maternal almost and with a gulping breath, Faith looks up, eyes shining with unshed tears.

 

‘Yes,’ Albert nods, moving his hand so that it rests on the girl’s shoulder. ‘It was a peaceful end. He was happy, I think.’

 

The older woman nods silently, aged eyes brimming over for just a moment and she gropes for a handkerchief, dabbing furiously at the rogue tears.

 

‘Good. Ye can go now. Nurse Fraser, you can be exempt from your duties this afternoon, I think. Go home. Rest. That’s an order.’

 

Faith nods gratefully, rising a little unsteadily from her chair and bobbing the nurse a wobbly curtsey, dragging the back of her hand across her face.

 

Albert nods his thanks to Sister Gregory and slowly ushers Faith away.

 

* * *

 

 

They do not speak again until they have reached the sunlit silence of the yard, his hand a steady comfort on her back, holding her upright.

 

The light is soft and shadowed through the leaves of the horse chestnut tree, strange shapes muted and blurred after the stark glare of the hospital.

 

Wordlessly, Faith turns to Albert as soon as they are as far away from the windows and the danger of prying eyes.

 

Her body feels hot and heavy under the weight of her uniform, small and strange in the all-encompassing embrace.

 

‘Here, _mo chuisle,_ dry your tears,’ he draws her close, pressing a warn handkerchief into her hands.

 

‘I’ve seen men die, but never… Never like that…’ She trails off, her voice choked with after-sobs, eyes streaming as she pulls away, searching his face.

 

‘No,’ he agrees, the image of the body that had been Ebren Krause, of the blue tainted skin and the wide, staring eyes floating horribly up to the forefront of his physche.

 

‘He was glad that we were there, though,’ he says quietly, cupping her cheek, tilting her chin to meet his gaze.

 

She nods, eyes still brimming, the endless baths of brilliant blue catching the shadowed sunlight and telling him a good many unreadable things.

 

‘I was glad that _you_ were there,’ she murmurs, offering him a small, quavering smile.

 

He nods, accepting her by kissing her softly; a gentle pressure against her cheek as he draws her close.

 

She tastes of salt and fire and honey and heather and the sharp, unmistakable tang of Pears soap, all mingled together in the sun kissed shadow scent of her freckled skin.

 

‘Albert… I…’

 

Flustered, she draws back, eyes wide and clear, her breathing hitched and fast as she stares at him.

 

‘Forgive me’, he murmurs, drawing his hands away until they are quite apart, staring at each other. Her face is pale in the dappled light, pale and bonny, lit underneath by fires of green and gold.

 

‘That was impulsive, I didn’t... I’m sorry…’

 

‘Ye did,’ she murmurs, reaching up to brush away a curl that has escaped her cap, holding his gaze all the while, ‘ye do.’

 

And then before he’s fully understood what he’s doing, he is kneeling to her, the mulch of grass and fallen leaves a carpet to his trousers, reaching out to clasp her hands, knowing that there could be no better moment than this one.

 

He cannot help but smile as he takes in her raised eyebrows, her lips trying and failing to form coherent words.

 

‘You said goodbye to me here, under this tree, once before. I’m not going to ask you to do so again,’ the weight of her hands tremble under his as she blinks, the eyes that he could gaze into forever and still not see enough of, still shining.

 

‘So,’ a deep, steadying breath, the words that he’s rehearsed in his head for weeks, flying from his brain without a second thought.

 

‘Faith Janet Fraser, lover of books and old legends and your siblings and plover’s eggs, will you do me the honour of becoming my wife?’

 

Her initial silence makes him afraid that he’s overdone it. That he’s scared her away with his fine words and not done it properly without a ring.

 

But before he can take back his words and start afresh, she is in his arms, latching her own around his neck and kissing him in kind; tentatively at first, but then as gentle as the breeze that ripples through the dappled sanctuary that protects them from the world.

 

‘Does that mean yes? I… I haven’t got a ring or anything...’ His voice is little more than a whisper, caught around her lips.

 

She nods and smiles a little coquettishly, tilting her head to one side to consider him.

 

‘Ye can give me a ring later,’ she murmurs through her smile.

 

‘Now, I just want you.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please feel free to read and review! Comments, suggestions, constructive criticisms etc are like chocolate to my brain!
> 
> Much love and enjoy x
> 
> Gaelic translations: 
> 
> Sidhie = ghost
> 
> Seann ghille = old hag


	27. The Rose Garden

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Faith and Albert return to Lallybroch from Broch Mordha hospital and try to come to terms with their feelings towards each other

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to read and review this story! Your feedback and support is utterly invaluable and means the world to me!

Faith doesn’t know how they reach the safety of Lallybroch.

 

Is only vaguely aware of the weight of Albert’s hands holding her as she had staggered from the bicycle, the dim echo of its’ clatter on the paving stones a vague jolt to her senses.

 

Is only half conscious of finding herself in the safety of the outside privy without knowing how she got there and vomiting into the bowl, her knees buckling, suddenly unable to take her weight as she retched over and over again, the acid sting of the bile mingling with the salt of her tears until her throat burnt and her stomach screamed, even though there was nothing left to throw up.

 

‘There, _mo chuisle’._ Albert’s hands on her shoulders, sweeping the damp sheath of her hair off the back of her neck and holding her close as she clung, shivering like a terrified child, to him.

 

And she presses close, her throat choked with after sobs, her hands balling the thick, walked fabric of his waistcoat- a hand-me-down from Jamie, into her fists. The soft, low, steady thrum of his heat at once a comfort and a torment to her.

 

A torment because it beats as Ebren’s heart, the heart that she had fought for so long to save, never will again.

 

And without warning, the memory of that pale, clammy face cracked with a thin flicker of a painful smile swims before her line of vision again and instead of Albert’s hand, the hand that had so recently held hers and proposed to her, she’s holding Ebren’s; the wavering beat of his pulse flooding through her fingers.

 

Saying a silent prayer for the young man’s departed soul, she shakes her head, trying to clear it as she gulps away her tears.

 

‘Here, Faith,’ the press of a worn handkerchief in her hand, dabbing softly at the red rimmed rawness around her eyes, pressing the soft cotton that smells of his dense, dark musk to her mouth, desperate to rid herself of the acid tang of bile that burns in her mouth.

 

‘Did ye suspect that…?’ Her voice tails away into nothingness, the words that she must say but cannot give voice to fading into off into oblivion, his handkerchief balled in a loose fist.

 

The weight of his thumb, the whorls of his fingerprints, the pressure of his knuckle against her cheek, tells her all she needs to know.

 

It is a moment before he speaks.

 

‘Aye, I suspected it,’ his voice is little more than a murmur, caught around a sigh as his shoulders sag at the realisation, his eyes deep and clear and distant. From the entrance to the covered walkway which houses the bicycles and the coveted green door to Claire’s stillroom; the faint, comforting cluck of the chickens as they scratch out the last of the summer light is just audible.

 

‘I didna want to let him know my fears whilst we were trying to escape, but I knew, in some dark part, that he wouldn’t survive. The damage tae his jaw was tae great- the entirety of his Buccinator muscle was ripped open, torn apart like it was nothing and…’ He stops, swallowing thickly, trying not to remember the hinge like quality of the young pilot’s jaw as it had gaped wide, despite the pressure of the bloodied bandages holding it in place.

 

Tries not to remember the wide, blue eyes slit like in pain as he struggled to answer Albert’s insistent questions after he’d found him and tried to discern if the severity of the wound was hiding any signs of concussion or cerebral damage.

 

Faith shudders in sympathy, remembering the grey faced men whom she had helped off the train at Inverness, grey faced, mongrel men in a state of such exhaustion that walking itself seemed too great a challenge.

 

Over their heads, a swallow dives out from its’ nest in the rafters with a startled squawk that pierces the silence, a bolt of blue disappearing into the crisp, clear air.

 

They stand in silence for a moment, listening to the thrum of the world around them, the songs of their hearts twinned as one. 

 

‘’Did ye mean what ye said, afterwards?’

 

The question feels almost impossibly childish to Faith as she says it, holding Albert’s gaze.

 

He nods, bending his head to her, dark eyes gleaming.

 

‘I did.’ His mouth quivers with the start of a smile as his thumb reaches out to still the slight tremor of her lip.

 

‘I do.’ She breathes out, the breath shaky in the quiet; a strange, warm sensation that could be relief flooding through her heart.

 

_To know._

_To know that he loves her for all that she is and means it, truly, deeply means it; not in the strange, superficial way that Johnny had as he had proposed to her in the summer evening quiet, his mind already on a wedding that would never materialise._

Quietly, she turns in Albert’s arms, reaching up on tiptoe to kiss him, her hands caught in the damp, dense curls that cluster at the nape of his neck.

 

His lips are soft and giving, finding and holding hers with ease.

 

Holding her.

 

Protecting her.

 

‘ _Mein Schatz‘_ _,_ murmured into the lock of hair tucked behind her ear as she prises her hands from his to cup his face, relishing in the warm, solid strength of his bones under her fingers.

 

A long, trembling finger reaches out to trace the line of her cheek, his eyes huge and hungry, drinking her in like a man half-starved.

 

 _‘Mo Chuisle’,_ she replies in turn, the language of her forefathers, of the very land itself, slipping soft and unseen from her tongue.

 

‘You’ll have to give me lessons’, Albert murmurs, a slight teasing note catching at his voice. ‘I remembered most of the Scots, but the Gaelic….’

 

A flush of heat flares up against her cheeks at that and she smiles, dipping her head, glad for the shadowed light and the fact that he cannot see her clearly.

 

 _‘Gu toilichte,’_ she murmurs, the Gaelic rolling sweetly off her tongue, switching to English as her hands travel down to toy with the buttons on his shirt, the comforting circle of worn wood caught between her fingers. ‘And anyway, ye’ll need tae have it, if you’re tae face up tae Da at all.’

 

He grins back at her and dips his head for another kiss, placed chastely on the crown of her skull, buried in her hair.

 

‘Shall we tell them, then?’

 

‘Aye,’ she murmurs back with a smile to match his own.

 

Together, they walk out from the dappled shadows of the walkway and into the soft evening light that is dying all around them. 

 

 

* * *

 

‘Marriage?’

 

The words ring out in the quiet stillness of the parlour as Jamie surveys the two young people before him.

 

The evening is drawing in and supper has been cleared away, the wireless a faint, reassuring crackle by the window.

 

The weight of Claire’s hands resting on the pit of his shoulder blades hold him as the silence builds, broken only by the rhythmic ticking of the clock on the mantelpiece and the faint ‘pop’ of a peat slab as it tumbles into the grate. Brianna’s head is resting in his lap, the weight of unravelled hanks of hair slipping through his fingers, an undrunk dram of whisky twinkling in the cut glass on the arm of his chair.

 

He cards out her plaits without thought, the weight of her hair slipping like liquid amber through his fingers. Her eyes are only for her sister, a sleepy sigh of contentment rippling through her lips at his question.

 

Slowly, his hands work a stray curl of hair back behind her ear, lingering on the diamond shaped birthmark that lies against that patch of secret skin.

 

‘ _Are ye happy, mo nighean ruaidh?’_

Sleepy, blue cat eyes, gleam back at him, a tremulous smile quavering at her lips.

_‘Aye, Da. But… But I hope that he willnae take her away from us, if ye ken what I mean?’_

_‘Aye, lass,’_ he lets his fingers fall slowly from her hair, pressing a soft, chaste kiss against her cheek, looking out from beneath his lashes to the scene before him, where William is curled up on Faith’s lap, despite being far too big for such coddling.

 

‘ _But I dinna think that he will. He kens how much she means tae ye. Tae us.’_

 

‘Aye, Da.’

 

Faith’s voice is quiet, soft with a contented smile that warms his heart to see as she glances up at Albert who nods, dark eyes glowing in the dim light.

 

‘ _Will you stand by her?’_

It is a silent question, but one that he hopes that the young man who has captured his daughters’ heart and found a way into their family, will understand.

 

‘ _I will’,_ the dark head dips in recognition; the grey eyes soft with sincerity. _‘I will love her for all that she is and with all that I have. I promise you.’_

‘That’s wonderful Faith!’

 

Claire has crossed the room in two strides and has gathered their eldest daughter into her arms, shooing William away, her whisky coloured eyes shining as she turns to Jamie.

 

‘Och lass,’ he murmurs; his heart suddenly full at the sight of them both.

 

Disentangling himself from Brianna, he crosses the room, to pull Faith into a tight embrace; relishing in the soft, warm weight of her as she buries close, her skin shining in the firelight.

 

In that moment, he cannot help but remember the moment that he had first set eyes on her, his first child, back in the Royal Military Hospital at Sandhurst.

 

_She’d been such a tiny thing then, lying against the glass with her small, narrow chest riddled with tubes; the thin web of dark blue veins standing in stark relief against the butterfly thin, translucent skin._

_And without warning he remembers the faint wisp of damp, copper hair that had plastered against her soft and perfect skull, the weight of her almost weightless when he had finally been allowed to hold her._

_Remembers the strange and wonderful newness that had throbbed through her as he had cupped his hand to protect her head, the throb of that new and beautiful heartbeat pulsing through her skin._

_Mo cholom geal._

_My white dove._

_My bonny, bonny lass._

_‘She’s a fighter my love,’ Claire had whispered to him in a voice broken with love and worry as they had held each other in that strange, clear time when he’d been retrieved from the agonising silence of the waiting room to see his wife and child in the delivery suite._

_He still remembers the smell of that room; the press of too many bodies crushed together in a parody of respectability, the reek of unspoken fear threatening to choke him._

_Some of the men had been in suits, some crushed in strange civilian clothes, some like him still in their crumpled battledress, fingers drumming against the arms of their chairs, whistling a painfully cheery piece that was hopelessly out of tune between their teeth._

_They had been given the newspaper to read and cigarettes to smoke to pass the time. Anything to take their minds off the fact that their wives were somewhere else, riding away on a dark expanse of unnameable pain and he had not been able to bear it._

_‘And she’s perfect. Absolutely perfect.’_

‘Are ye happy, Da?’

 

Faith’s eyes are very wide and very blue as she looks up at him.

 

‘Aye,’ he murmurs, his voice a husky throb in the back of his throat.

 

Letting her go, he draws back to stand beside Claire, her chin resting on his shoulder, one hand reaching down to twine with his own as they survey their eldest daughter.

 

Their miracle, wished-for child who had faced so much adversity and come out smiling, singing to the world with all she was worth.

 

He returns the pressure, relishing in the weight of her fingers entwined with his, turning slightly to press a light kiss on her forehead that makes her nose wrinkle with pleasure.

 

‘For the both of ye’, he murmurs, a small flush of pride igniting in his heart as Albert’s eyes light up at the recognition and Faith’s pale, firelit cheeks flush with a girlish happiness that he has not seen for so long.

 

On the mantelpiece above the fireplace, the engraved, gilded carriage clock that had been a gift from the Lallybroch tenants on his engagement to Claire, strikes the hour.

 

Quarter to ten.

 

_How had it got so late?_

‘Time for bed, I think?’

 

_Aye, Sassenach. But first…_

 

His wife’s voice is a murmur in his ear and he feels a flicker of a smile quivering at the corner of his mouth as he takes in William, curled up on the hearth rug, the dying embers lighting his hair with sparks of fiery colour and Brianna watching the proceedings from her arm chair through heavy, sleep filled eyes, a small smile playing on her lips.

 

Crossing the room, Jamie kneels in front of his son who is curled in a foetal position on the rug, the index finger of his right hand resting lightly against the soft curve of his chin.

 

‘Time for bed, _mo bhalaiach,’_ the words are a whisper, the rise of the lad’s bony shoulder blades pushing up against his palm.

 

Bleary, tawny coloured eyes set in slowly protruding high cheekbones blink owlishly up at him and for a sudden, heart stopping moment, he is back in the carnage of the snow as the German guards rushed their prisoners towards the Baltic Coast in a desperate attempt to escape the Russian guns.

 

Back kneeling in snow slurried with oil and blood and muck, cradling the tattered remnants of a child’s toy that before exhausted eyes blurred by hunger and fatigue, had transformed into the sleeping body of his son.

 

Back tracing a trembling finger over skin that was as hard and as cold as marble, dabbing away the sliver of blood that caught against the lad’s lips with a frozen, trembling finger; the wide, bright eyes blank and lifeless.

 

_No._

_Not that._

 

‘Da? Da, what’s the matter?’

 

Willie has come round to bleary wakefulness, blinking up at him, eyes suddenly wide and frightened amid a pale, firelit face.

 

He shakes his head, trying to clear it, trying to smile.

 

‘Nothing for ye tae worry about, _mo mac_ ,’ he murmurs, forcing the memories back as he reaches out so the boy can latch his arms, monkey like over his shoulders. The weight of him; solid, warm and comforting floods through Jamie’s arms as he stands slowly; pressing a soft, unseen kiss into the crop of his sons’ curls.

 

‘Can ye read me a story afore bed, Da?’

 

Words muffled into his shoulder, fingers curling against the back of his neck.

 

‘Aye,’ he cannot help but smile. ‘Of course I can. But I’ve got tae do something first. When we get up there, why don’t ye pick one out an’ we can read it together. Would ye like that?’

 

‘Aye, sounds braw,’ Willie’s voice slowly slips into the heavy, muffled mumbled of impending sleep and Jamie shifts his weight so that the lad lies more comfortably against his shoulder. ‘Albert? Will… Will we… Will we put up the roof tomorrow?’

 

‘Aye’, Albert nods, dark eyes gleaming in the shadowed light. ‘If the weather holds. You can do the nailing in, if you’d like.’

 

The younger boy nods, his chin thudding into the pit of Jamie’s shoulder blades; the smallest of smiles flickering across his lips.

 

By the fireplace, Faith and Albert watch and wait, glowing in the dying firelight and on the moor, a lone owl screeches into the night; the softly budding roses on his mother’s briar rustling against the glass; a whispered lullaby rocking the night to sleep.

 

Crossing the room to his eldest child, Jamie shifts Willie into a more comfortable position, resting his free hand on Faith’s shoulder.

 

‘If ye can spare him, _mo nighean ruriadh,_ I’d like Albert tae come wi’ me, if he would. There’s something that I’d like very much tae show him.’

 

‘Da?’

 

Faith’s eyes are very big and very blue, flicking at once to Albert, who nods quietly, their hands reaching slowly for each other in wordless recognition before he follows Jamie out of the room.

 

Out of the shadows, Claire nods and as they leave the room, Jamie watches her slowly coax Brianna awake.

 

* * *

 

 

The blue papered walls of the Laird’s room are thrown into sharp shadows as the oil lamp flares into life and Jamie stretches, shoulders throbbing with a comforting ache from William’s weight. He has left his son tucked up in bed, safely caught in dreams of Rob Roy and his latest adventures raiding cattle on the Scottish Border drove roads.

 

‘Wait here if ye will, _mo chariad,’_ he murmurs to Albert, resting his hand on the young man’s shoulder.

 

Dark eyes gleam up at him, following his back as he crosses the room to the boudoir that had once belonged to Ellen Mackenzie and now belongs to Claire, hoping that what he seeks is still where he left it, where his father left it, thirty-four years ago.

 

The rosewood with its’ gold inlay and flourished handles carved with thistles and roses is embossed with the carved initials of his parents and entwined with the Fraser crest and the year of their marriage burning bright on the centre cupboard.

 

Carefully, Jamie eases the middle drawer open, fingers skimming over the soft crepe paper, falling over the sharp edges of boxes that house innumerable treasures that he cannot give name to.

 

The box that he’s looking for is wedged in the furthest corner of the drawer, tucked away beneath sheets of faded tissue paper. The scent of pressed violet and comfrey, harebell and rose picked on by-gone summer days now lost to the mists of memory waft through the room, bringing with it memories that he had thought long forgotten.

 

He draws it out slowly, the black lacquered wood dwarfed between his fingers, digging a fingernail nail under the stiff, tarnished clasp.

 

The Highland interlace pattern still visible as it rests on its’ cream silk cushion- a little tarnished now and in need of a good polish but looking for all the world like the ring that he remembers glittering on his mother’s finger, only taken off by Brian Fraser when the coffin had been laid open in the hallway, the body of the bairn who had lived only to be christened Robert Brian Gordon, lying beside her, on the day of the funeral for the Lallybroch tenants to pay their respects to the laird’s dead wife.

 

Remembers broken fragments of whispered, tear-stained Gaelic floating gruffly through a thick cloud of painful nothingness as Jenny had gently and firmly steered him away.

 

Remembers the tall, black shadow that had once been his Father buckling to the floor, utterly undone by the weight of his sobs, cradling something small and delicate between wide, safe palms.

 

_‘Soraidh slàn mo leannan... Ellen, mo chiride…’_

_And Jenny’s sharp, slanted cat-eyes, the exact copy of his own blurred with masterfully unshed tears, her face white and strained as she took one, last searching look at the crumpled figure of Brian Fraser and the approaching undertaker and his men, shouldering the lid of the coffin between them._

_The sparking thud of the hammer head on each nail as it thudded into the wood, barring his Mother from earthly view forever that had echoed through the hallway had been too much._

_The weight of Jenny’s hand gripping his thin, bony shoulder, pulling him away._

_‘Come away, Jamie. Come away, lad. This isnae the place for us.’_

 

He swallows, willing the images away.

 

They are like fragments of broken glass, scattered in a bloodied array of colour throughout his memory.

 

‘Albert?’

 

‘Aye?’

 

The box is still and heavy in his hand, the weight of years of memory clasped in his fingers.

 

The young man’s eyes are deep and dark with questions, flicking to the box and up to Jamie’s face and back again.

 

Slowly, he undoes the clasp, the glittering, simple silver ring catching at the dim light cast by the oil lamp.

 

Albert’s eyes are huge in his face, mouth trying and failing to form coherent words.

 

‘This belonged to my Mother. Faith’s Grandmother.’ 

 

The words come slowly and he hopes that they are the right ones as he watches the young man take the box with reverent care, cradling it between his hands.

 

‘Claire and I kent that ye didna have a ring to propose with, so we would it like it very much for ye to have it. Tae propose wi’ it. Properly.’

 

A faint laugh tugs from Albert’s lips at that and he dips his head, blinking rapidly as he takes the box from Jamie, the lid creaking slightly as he presses his fingers against the hinges to close it.

 

‘Thank you,’ he murmurs, holding the older man’s gaze; dim and shadowed in the flickering light.

 

‘Truly.’

 

* * *

 

 

Albert finds Faith sitting on the white bench deep in Ellen Mackenzie’s rose briar, a flurry of petals; soft pinks, ivory whites and deep, rich plums scattered over her lap, catching in her curls.

 

He has spent the morning up in the tree house with William, stripped to the waist and grinning as they raised the roof of the tree house, stopping only to swig at the canteen of homemade elderflower and chew in companionable, smiling silence at their bannocks that Claire had sent them out with after breakfast.

 

The light is soft and dappled through the darkness of the leaves, glowing over her pale, freckled face as she glances up at the sound of his footsteps crunching on the gravel.

 

‘Albert? I didna expect tae find ye here… Are you alright?’

 

Her voice trails off; long, lithe fingers toying at some unravelling threads in her dress.

 

Her eyes are very big and vey blue as she looks up at him, a twinge of something that he cannot read passing for an instant through the deep, dark pupils.

 

‘Aye, I am,’ he murmurs, crossing the space between them in a single stride and reaching for her hand, the weight of her grandmother’s ring heavy in the breast pocket of his shirt.

 

‘What is it, _mein Herz_?‘

 

Her skin tingles under his touch as he traces the line of her cheek, feeling cold and clear despite the late summer warmth, her fingers trembling slightly under his.

 

‘I…’

 

She trails off, breaking his gaze; a sudden sobbing breath catching through her lips.

 

He moves closer at that, wanting to hold her, wanting to protect her from whatever is tearing ar her heart.

 

She sighs, a breathless, frustrated sigh, fixing her gaze resolutely on the latticed, dappled bower above their heads, her face suddenly caught in shadowed in the mottled light, shoulders hunching as she struggles to find the right words.

 

Albert waits, the weight of the small, white hand which holds so much power, still in his own.

 

‘I was trying to think of a way tae tell ye this,’ she starts and stops, turning to him, face flickering through the incremental light.

 

‘Tell me what?’

 

Somewhere in the dense, dark foliage of the garden, a thrush has started its’ morning warble and a male blackbird flutters down onto the bench, hopping onto the gravel, gleaming orange eyes and beak expectant for grubs.

 

Faith’s fingers shiver in his hand, her eyes wide and far away.

 

‘Faith?’

 

Slowly, he squeezes her hand between his, fingers rubbing over the bumps of her knuckles, falling into the pits of the ghosts of the chilblains that he finds there.

 

After a long moment, she sighs, and turns to him; eyes shining as she takes in their joined hands, lying clasped against the chipped, white paint of the bench.

 

And he knows that she is remembering the kiss in the hospital yard, the way that she had latched her arms around his neck and kissed him with that slow, tentative sweetness that he loves so much.

 

‘Was it a mistake?’

 

His voice sounds strange, even to his own ears, the weight of the box containing Ellen’s ring heavy in the breast pocket of his shirt, their combined heart thudding through the silence. 

 

‘No, _mo chuisle_ ,’ she murmurs quietly, returning the pressure, fingers entwined with his.

 

‘No, it wasn’t. I’m happy, I swear I am…’ A breathless, choked up laugh that makes his heart twist in two.

 

‘I was just remembering… Just thinking…’

 

‘About?’

 

He doesn’t want to probe her any further, but she nods, chewing her lower lip.

 

In the distance, the French windows slam open and he hears Ban’s deep, rumbling bark throb through the soft, summer air followed by the crunch of a wheelbarrow on gravel and the sound of Claire whistling to herself as she begins to cut the wisteria, with its’ flood of pale, violet flowers back against the wall.

 

‘About a lad I know… He… His Da’s one o’ Da’s tenants, but ye wouldna ken him. He asked me tae marry him, as he thought he should. We’ve known each other since we were bairns and oh, this was last summer, before… Before I kent…’

 

_Before she knew that he was alive._

 

She is rambling, the words tumbling from her lips without coherent thought as she gropes for a handkerchief. Albert gets there before her, his fingers skimming over the hard corners of the box, flushing out his handkerchief, the white cloth that despite its’ many launderings, still sports the faint, dark splittles of Ebren’s Krause’s blood, now faded into a deep, dark brown against the white linen.

 

‘An’ then… When I knew that ye… Ye were alive, I kent that I couldna love him… I mean I could, but only as a brother... Not… Not like…’

 

‘Can ye forgive me?’

 

Her lips are trembling and he can do nothing but nod, wanting nothing more than to hold her and banish all of her hurts.

 

‘There’s nothing to forgive, _mein Schatz,‘_ he murmurs as she buries close to him, the weight of her hair rippling his fingers.

 

‘He’s in the past, Faith. Whoever he is.’ A finger reaches out to tuck a stray curl back behind her ear. ‘You don’t have to forgive me his memory. I promise.’

 

She nods, her hand reaching to lie flat against his chest, nose crinkling in pleasure as he places a soft kiss to the crown of her skull.

 

He breathes out, watching her fingers rise and fall with the expansion of his lungs, skimming over the scarred over wound to his side.

 

‘And you? Did you… Have you been in love with anyone else?’

 

‘Yes’, he murmurs, the memory of the girl whom he had loved back in Zittau, long ago, memories that he had thought long forgotten, swimming back to the forefront of his mind.

 

‘Her… Her name was Elise and I…’

 

_Memories of being fifteen years old and sneaking out of class for a kiss in a secluded corner of the school yard._

_Memories of the weight of her; warm and comforting, a farmer’s daughter with capable arms; deep, clear blue-grey eyes and a smattering of freckles clustered over the bridge of her nose and a sweet, wide mouth that kissed well for an inexperienced virgin like him._

_Memories of her hair, roped like yellow corn that tumbled down her back, grazing her waist, swinging like a pendulum as she walked._

_Memories of a sharp, musky scent that smelt of cows and corn and manure and freshly cut grass as they had held each other, strange, new, exhilarating smells for a town boy whose only experience of the country was going up to the mountains to spend the three weeks holiday with his Großmutter and the bundle that was his little sister; little, squalling Ada milking cows and picking berries and plums and currants and apples for autumn._

_Memories of…_

‘She died. Of smallpox, when I was seventeen. The year before I came to Scotland to go to medical school.’

 

His voice is husky in his throat and Faith nods.

 

‘ _Dh’fhalbh dia anam,’_ she murmurs, crossing herself in penance for the young, unknown girl’s soul.

 

‘Did you love her?’

 

The question is barely a breath between them.

 

‘I… It… It was a… Nothing more than a…’

 

He stops and gesticulates, groping inexpertly for the expression in English.

 

‘A schoolboy crush?’

 

He can hear her smile behind the question and nods.

 

‘Aye, twas nothing but that. But…’

 

‘D’ye love her still?’

 

The question hovers between them for a moment that lasts for an eternity, before crashing to the ground, never to be asked again. A shaft of sunlight falls across her face, momentarily casting it into shadow.

 

Her eyes are wide and bright, pleading with him to make it quick.

 

_‘Say it in German, in Dutch, in Hebrew, in some language that I won’t understand. Please.’_

 

‘Her…’

 

He stops, trying to find the right words.

 

‘I loved… I loved… I love the memory of her. She…’ He pauses, reaching to cup her cheek, her weight grounding him, keeping him whole.

 

‘She was my first love, _meine Geliebte,_ _’_ he murmurs, pressing a light kiss against her cupid’s bow.

 

Far away on the moor, he can just distinguish the faint opening notes of a thrush’s song, serenading the day with joyful sweetness.

 

‘But you… Faith, you alone hold the key to my heart whole in your hands,’ his voice is soft as he digs out the box containing Ellen Mackenzie Fraser’s ring from his breast pocket, holding her gaze all the while. ‘And you know it.’

 

And before he knows what he’s doing, he has scrambled off the bench and is kneeling to her, just as he had done twenty-four hours ago, the dew-soft grass soaking the knees of his trousers.

 

Her eyes grow huge as they take in the simple, silver ring lying on its’ ivory cushion, the antique silver glittering in the dappled light. They flick up to Albert and back again, her mouth opening and closing like a fish as she tries to form coherent words.

 

‘Albert… Ye canna… This… This belonged to my Grandmother… I can’t…’

 

‘All the more reason for you to have it,’ he replies, smiling a little shyly at her. ‘Your Da found it for me. Said that if I was going to propose to you, it would have to be done properly or not at all.’

 

‘That sounds like Da,’ she murmurs with a small, choked laugh, looking down her nose at him in an expression that reminds him so much of Jamie that he cannot help but chuckle.

 

‘Will you have me, then? With all that I am and all that your father wants me to be?’

 

She holds his gaze and gently places her free hand over the one that he’s holding, squeezing gently; a small, gentle smile crinkling at the corner of her lips.

 

‘I’d have ye whether Da approved or no’. The words are caught in a grin, one that ignites the deep blue sparks in her eyes and in that moment, he finds that she is the most beautiful girl that he’s ever seen.

 

He grins back at her, gingerly plucking the ring from the cushion with one hand and taking her left hand with the other.

 

Her fingers rest easily in his palm as he holds her gaze, slowly slipping the ring onto the fourth finger of her left hand.

 

Their kiss is one witnessed by the curious blackbird who hops onto the paint chipped wood, chirruping irritably at the lack of sustenance, the thud of pruned wisteria being thrown into a wheelbarrow and, far away in the cloud speckled sky, the lark, whose song is a lullaby, whispering over the moor.

 

Deep in the garden, the soft scent of Ellen Mackenzie Fraser’s rose briar shelters them from the world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please feel free to read and review! Comments, suggestions, constructive criticisms etc are like chocolate to my brain!
> 
> Much love and enjoy x
> 
> German and Gaelic translations:
> 
> ‘Mein Schatz’ = my darling
> 
> ‘Soraidh slan’ = Farewell 
> 
> ‘dh’ fhalabh Dhia anam’ = may God rest her soul 
> 
> ‘Gu toilichte’ = gladly


	28. I Heard My Country Calling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brianna arrives in Glasgow to begin her course at the Art School and tries to carve out a new life for herself and finds a a new friend along the way

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to read and review this story! Your feedback and support is utterly invaluable and means the world to me!

 

**September 1946**

**Glasgow**

 

The September light is soft and dappled from an unexpected shower, raindrops clinging against the grass like diamonds as Brianna makes her way through Kelvingrove Park, the wind rippling through her plaits as she peddles along the river.

 

After a week of inductions, of sitting in strange, gabled lecture halls listening to tutors and course convenors, surrounded by foreign breath breathed by foreign bodies, of sitting up late sketching by lamplight, watching the flame in the oil lamp flicker, casting strange shapes against the paisley patterned wallpaper in her room, listening the rumble of traffic against the cobbles as her pencil flew across the paper, a loose lock of hair curled against her index finger as she tried to conjure all that she missed about the Highlands and home, she is glad to be outside.

 

The leather satchel, a parting present from the entire family, that is embossed with her initials, is strapped securely to her back. It is full of paper and her Grandmother’s battered and treasured enamel box of colouring pencils, each one a snub of the brightest colour. Alongside them lie the set of charcoal pencils that her Da had pressed into her hands at the station, his fingers that she loves so much trembling slightly as they had gripped her own.

 

Tucked away deep in the bottom of the lining are the two letters that she had found on the mahogany trestle table in the hallway just as she was leaving for her lecture.

 

 

**10 th September 1946**

**Lallybroch, Scotland**

**_‘Dear Bree,_ **

****

**_We miss you._ **

****

**_I miss you._ **

****

**_I hope that there’s enough tae keep ye out of trouble in Glasgow! Da’s askin’ Father Cameron if Albert and I can start tae get the banns read for our wedding. If I thought that I had butterflies in my stomach when he proposed, I certainly do now. I miss hearing ye shuffle and fuss in the night and seeing that familiar chink of light under your door when you’re reading or drawing late. I come into the kitchen or the library after a shift, or go up the back stairs to your room, expecting to hear your laugh and am hit afresh with the knowledge that you’re 169 miles away._ **

****

**_Will ye come to the wedding? Will the University let ye come? I couldna bear to be married wi’out you._ **

****

**_Mo ghaul agus mo bheannachdan uile, pluithair beag,_ **

****

**_Faith_ **

****

The memory of the familiar Gaelic blessing that Faith had whispered fiercely in her ear in the crush and noise of the departing train sends sharp prickles of salt stabbing at Brianna’s eyelids and she gropes for a handkerchief, forcing herself to take a steadying, gulping breath as she shifts to the other letter, written on the soft, barely blue paper that she remembers stealing to sketch on when she was small.

 

‘Enough,’ she mutters to herself, slipping off the bicycle to wheel it to the sun-dappled shadows of the great, wizened, beech tree that sheltered the fountain from the rest of the park.

 

Slowly, she pushes herself further up against the trunk, tucking her legs under her, the knurled weight of the trunk a strange comfort against her spine.

 

A small, choked sob pulses in her throat when she sees her father’s firm, determined hand scrawled across the page, the small, cramped letters written by a man who was born left handed but, by the whims of vain masters, was forced to write with his right.

 

**_10 th September 1946_**

**_Lallybroch, Scotland_ **

****

**_My dearest Brianna,_ **

****

**_Just a brief line to wish ye well in Glasgow. Remember tae smile, keep your head up and remember that we at home are so proud of you and all that you have accomplished._ **

****

**_Your Mam and I took William, Kenny Lindsay, Albert and Bran out blackberry picking yesterday when Faith was at the hospital. The sun was a beautiful shadowed gold over the hedgerows down by the Home Farm and we scrumped more than we picked, coming home with purple mouths to which your Mother gave us all a fair scolding!_ **

****

**_It still feels strange thinking of you in Glasgow, in a city where the green spaces have to fight for same space as the tenements.  Thinking of you without the wind in your hair or the vast expanse of the moor at your feet, is no’ something that I ever thought possible. Can ye bear it, d’ye think?_ **

****

**_For my first few months in Edinburgh, I thought that I couldna bear it at all and yearned for home, for the heather, for the curlew’s call, for the sharp scent of peat fires more than I thought possible. If I ken ye at all mo chuisle, I ken that ye will do the same, but I also know that you will make the best of it and I am so proud of you for that._ **

****

‘Oh, Da’, she sniffs, blinking back the sudden screen of tears that blur her vision, dragging the sleeve of her coat back across her face, turning her streaming eyes back to the letter.

 

**_The preparations for Faith’s wedding are in their infancy and I am being drowned with questions about dresses and guest lists and the reception to such an extent that I feel like a change of career will now be necessary!_ **

****

**_Pray for me, mo nighean ruaidh, as I do for you._ **

****

**_Mo ghaul agus mo bheannachdan uile,_ **

****

**_Your loving father,_ **

****

**_Da.’_ **

 

The park stretches out wide before her, a great expanse of unexplored knocks and crannies, but she finds that she can’t look at it.

 

Can’t see any of it without being reminded of her last night at home, less than a month ago.

 

* * *

 

 

_Her Mother had cooked her favourite supper of a savoury pie with the delicious treat of fresh hard-boiled eggs glistening within the mincemeat and vegetables, the achingly familiar Oak table scrubbed and weighed down with treats from the depths of the Lallybroch larder._

_‘Just for you, smudge,’ Claire had whispered, holding out her palm full of that sweet butter pastry that she has not tasted for so long, a small, conspiratorial smile lighting her lips when Brianna had slipped into the kitchen and seen her at the table, her apron and the knife-scarred wood coated with flour as she had pinched out the roses and thistles with the tips of her fingers for the decorations._

_‘Thank you,’ she had whispered, moving close to drink in the peaty pungent scent of the garden, cinnamon, mint and lavender that cling to her mother like a second skin._

_Claire had pulled her closer, burying her nose in her hair, her eyes burning with something that Brianna couldn’t read as she pushed her away, so that they held each other at arms’ length, her mother reaching out to tuck a stray curl behind her ear._

_‘You’ll do just fine, little love,’ she had murmured then; a soft, tremulous smile catching at her lips._

_‘Will I?’_

_The question had been barely a breath and yet hearing the words fall from her lips, crashing into the silence makes the knot in her stomach that has been building every time she’s thought about going away for too long, tightens._

_Claire had nodded bravely and tried to smile, pulling her into a tight embrace, her lips lingering in a soft, chaste kiss deep in the depths of her hair._

_‘You will. You are so brave, my darling, Braver than you know.’_

_And then, later, when the lamps had been trimmed low and the candles had been lit, casting the dining room with its’ array of Fraser family portraits into sharp, dark shadows, her father had raised his glass to her from the head of the table, blue eyes blazing with simple, unaffected adoration, the light of the candles casting his crown of auburn curls into a halo of fire._

_Her heart had almost burst with pride and broken with the pain of love and parting as the sweet, old Gaelic words of the parting blessing had been spoken by her father, Claire, Faith and William and then repeated in English by her father and Albert, had filled the room._

_‘Ma tha obair an-còmhnaidh ann airson do làmhan a dhèanamh._

_Ma bhios do sporan daonnan a 'cumail bonn no dhà._

_Ma bhios a 'ghrian an-còmhnaidh a' deàrrsadh air a 'phìos uinneig agad._

_Bi cinnteach gum bi bogha-bogha a 'leantainn gach uisge._

_Bidh làmh charaid daonnan faisg ort agus_

_Gu bheil Dhia a 'lìonadh do chridhe le aoibhneas a bhith gad bhrosnachadh.’_

_Later, when the night had swept itself over the moors and the word was hushed in the soft serenity of sleep, those words had returned to haunt her._

_She had lain awake in her room that had been hers since before she can remember, listening to the comforting creak of the pipes above her head, the whisper of the trees and her grandmother’s rose briar against the window._

_Had memorised through eyes that ached and stung with exhaustion the shadowed cracks on the ceiling, the way the moonlight puddled through cracks in the shutters onto the bare, wooden floorboards._

_Had clenched her fists in silent agony until her fingers ached and tears smarted against her eyelids, willing and yet unable to let the pain cease._

_And then, listening to the grandfather clock on the landing chime in midnight- the witching hour which was neither day nor night, she had given up and slipped out of bed, sucking in a breath as her bare feet fell against the cold floorboards._

_Stubbing her toes multiple times against the chair beside her bed, she had groped out into the passage, toes instinctively curling away from the chill of the blue velvet carpet, feeling for the cool, dark wood of the small staircase leading down to the second floor._

_There had been a chink of light under her sister’s door and she was drawn to it like a moth to a flame, her cold, pained heart yearning for the touch of another._

_‘Faith? Faith are ye awake?’_

_Her voice had sounded queer and small to her ears as she had knocked once and listened to the rustle of bedclothes and a sleepy, disgruntled sigh in answer, before taking her cue and pushing the door open._

_‘I am now.’_

_A tousled halo of blazing hair had peered out from under the piles of blankets that Faith had taken to bed, her face white, eyes widening, expression softening at the sight of her little sister._

_‘What is it, Bree? Can ye no’ sleep, a pluithair?’_

_And Brianna had shaken her head mutely and Faith had nodded, drawing the covers back._

_‘Get into bed, then, mo chuisle. I’ll warm ye.’_

_They had lain in silence for a long moment, listening to the steady, sleep-filled rhythm of each other’s breathing, Faith’s arm tucked around Brianna’s shoulder, her sister’s nose nestled deep in her shoulder._

_‘What if… What if I’m terrible at it?’_

_The question had hung in the silence for a moment before Brianna had even known that she was asking it, the words small and caught and broken in the soft, companionable dark._

_‘Terrible at what?’_

_Faith had pulled her closer, tucking the sheets around her tightly, as if they were bairns once more and not grown-up, facing the strange and perilous path towards adulthood._

_‘Ye won’t be,’ she said at last, her voice a low, fierce murmur somewhere in the pit of Brianna’s shoulder blades._

_‘Ye’ve got a real talent. Ye can conjure up so much wi’ your pens and your pencils and I’m a wee bit jealous of it myself, actually.’_

_She had felt the smile in her sister’s voice then and felt a small crack of warmth light in her own heart as she had twisted round to face Faith, her sister’s face flickering in and out of the incremental lamplight._

_‘Jealous? You? Ye havena got a jealous bone in your body!’_

_Faith had smiled a little shyly at her outrage and dipped her head, murmuring something that Brianna had not been able to catch._

_‘What?’_

_She had snuggled closer, listening to the rise and fall of her sisters’ lungs from beneath her nightgown, the comforting thud of her heart pressed up against her ear. Far out on the moor, a vixens’ scream pierces the night and somewhere far away, some unsuspecting rabbit or vole dies for its’ carelessness._

_‘Ye dinna ken that,’ Faith had murmured quietly, nestling her chin on the top of Brianna’s head._

_‘Don’t I?’_

_‘I can be jealous Bree. I just… I’ve learnt not tae show it, that’s all,’ she had paused then and with a pang to her heart, Brianna had heard the hitch in her breathing, the sobbing breath choked back into oblivion._

_‘When we were both in school together for that short time and ye… Ye streaked ahead an’ I… It was all I could do not tae rage at ye, but kenning that it was your destiny tae do well, tae always be in the light, whilst I, a puir sparrow in comparison…’_

_‘Oh Faith, ye canna think such things!’_

_Fumbling in the dark, she had latched her arms around her elder sister’s neck and pulled her close, drinking in the sharp, sleep filled scent of her, yearning with all her heart that now was not the last time she would smell it._

_Faith had sniffed masterfully then and returned the embrace, their tears mingling freely in the dark._

_‘Ye’ll be just fine, mo chuisle,’ she had murmured quietly, the words almost lost in her sister’s hair, and Brianna had had to choke back another sob of reproach._

_I won’t._

_I can’t._

_‘Ye can,’ by the guttering lamplight, Faith’s face had been lit with a tremulous, quavering smile, one that Brianna could do nothing but return, her eyes aching with impending sleep._

_‘Promise me one thing,’ she had murmured, the words almost lost as she snuggled down against their shared pillow._

_‘Anything,’ Faith’s voice had been a whisper in the dark, mingled with the creak of the bedsprings as she had settled herself down._

_‘Write tae me. Please,’ slowly Brianna had propped herself onto her elbow and held her sister’s gaze with what was left of the light, twin cat eyes blazing into each other._

_‘Every day, if ye wish.’_

* * *

 

The weight of a hand on her shoulder.

 

She shifts, feeling the hard knobs of tree bark press painfully into the small of her back.

 

‘Excuse me… Miss… I think you dropped this… I didna want it to blow away…’

 

She blinks rapidly, the word swimming into focus in a haze of brown and blue and green.

 

Gleaming emerald eyes burn out of pale face framed by a mop of dark curls, a pert, snub nose that is smattered with a bloom of late summer freckles and soft, full lips.

 

The eyes soften a little as Brianna struggles into wakefulness, the grip on her shoulder lessening.

 

A long fingered, unadorned hand is holding out the leather satchel to her and she takes it, nodding distractedly as she flips the clasp open, fingers skimming over the quires of good, weighted watercolour paper that had been a present from William- bought with months of saved sweetie money and some help from their parents and falling with a thankful exhale against the hard edges of Ellen Mackenzie Fraser’s box of colouring pencils.

 

‘Thank you,’ Brianna breathes, listening to her heart slow in its’ panicked thunder through her ears, taking in the long, straight skirt in a dark, moss green that reminds her so much of the Highland moorland grasses that she has to bite her lip to stop the ever-ready tears from pricking against the corners of her eyes.

 

_When will every little thing stop reminding her of home and what she’s left behind?_

 

‘Mhairi,’ the girl nods and smiles, showing an endearing gap between her two front teeth as she holds a hand out, which Brianna takes, feeling the soft, warn callouses of a scholar rub against her palm in a firm grip.

 

 ‘Second year, studying English Literature, though I’d rather be reading Classics,’ she pauses, on the verge of saying more, but then grimaces slightly; a soft smile flickering across her lips as she sizes Brianna up.

 

She is hiding something, but Brianna cannot work out what.

 

The intensity of her gaze as it rakes up to the tumbled auburn mane of her hair, taking in her height with the smallest quirk of an eyebrow, makes Brianna want to turn away, but something, some silent, indescribable thing, tells her that she must not.

 

‘Brianna,’ she replies, returning the smile and the handshake. ‘I’m in my first term at the Art School and…’

 

‘Bri-anna,’ Mhairi replies, testing the syllables against her tongue, Brianna’s name made strange by the soft Edinburgh brogue.

 

‘I… I was named after my grandfather, or so my parents tell me,’ Brianna smiles, her heart slowly warming to this new girl with the feather-dark hair and piercing eyes.

 

The older girl nods.

 

‘And this is your first time in the big city, by the looks of things? Ye poor wee lass.’ The wide, strange eyes look past her, taking in the heavy clouds, thick with the promise of rain gathering over the tenement blocks of Finneston, something unreadable falling into place when Brianna catches her eyes again.

 

‘Where are ye staying, out o’ interest?’

 

‘West Regent Street, with family.’

 

It is a half-truth at least, for Catherine and Hugh Murray with their fifteen-year-old twins, Archie and Fred, strapping, dark haired boys of twelve at the local Grammar school in Garnethill, are her uncle’s family, distant Murray cousins whom she knows by sight from massed family gatherings like her first communion, or William’s christening.

 

‘D’ye want to come back tae mine for some tea? It’s across the river in Kelvinbridge, so it’s no’ far. There should be a dip of tea left in the caddie and my landlady lets me take her day-old scones when her old besoms from the WI havena polished off the lot.’

 

She laughs, a short, free laugh and reaches for Brianna’s hand, tucking it securely under her arm.

 

It is a laugh that catches on the wind and Brianna smiles, gathering up her things and finding her bicycle.

 

Together, Brianna wheeling her bicycle between them, they walk in companionable silence through the slowly dying light along the river.

 

* * *

 

 

‘It’s no’ much, but it’s home.’

 

The flare of an oil lamp flaring into life throws a long, thin hallway that is cluttered with trestle tables that are almost toppling over with papers and envelopes in various stages of being read into a soft, amber glow. The passageway holds the strong odour of paint fumes that Brianna has come to associate with the studio rooms at the Art School which does not completely mask the musk of boiled cabbage and burnt metal.

 

She had chained her bicycle to the railing outside the flat and followed Mhairi up the long, winding staircase. Clutching her satchel to her chest, she had passed strange, dark doors that concealed lives which she has no knowledge of until they had reached one of deep, dark blue with a tarnished brass knocker in the shape of a lion’s head with wide, grinning jaws.

 

From along the passageway, the sound of a door slamming itself shut and a foreign exclamation of frustration cuts through the silence.

 

Peeling off her coat and taking Brianna’s, Mhairi laughs and, standing on tip toe to hang them on the carved, mahogany peg calls out, ‘it’ll be all right in the end Antoni!’

 

A scuffle at the door and a dishevelled, thin faced, dark haired young man with round glasses perched on the end of his nose, pokes his head out, hazel eyes blazing as he glares at her.

 

Brianna can just make out paint stains splattering across the fingers that cling to the door and the white dart of his collar is crumpled with what could be charcoal.

 

‘Już nigdy nie będzie tak samo! Zniszczyłem to!’

 

‘No, you havena! I bet ye half a crown it’ll be just as good, if not better than your last!’

 

Mhairi rolls her eyes at Brianna who watches the dark head disappear with a noise of disgust and the door slam shut with such force that the lamps cocooned in their soft, brass bowls rattle ominously.

 

‘So dramatic,’ the older girl mutters with a smile, steering her through another door into a small, barely furnished room, the walls papered with a soft, pink and blue paisley pattern against a pale background. A small bay window looks out over the street, a window box full of mint and lavender sparking a flash of colour against the dark red sandstone.

 

‘He’s Polish. Fled from the Nazis in ’35 an’ came to Glasgow to seek his fortune as an artist. My landlady took him in because she’s half Jewish and then her man… Weel… Perch yourself where ye can. D’ye want tea? There should be some left over…’

 

Brianna nods silently, reaching for the older girls’ hand for a brief moment. She gives it slowly, joined skin squeezing in unspoken, acknowledged understanding before Brianna turns from her to take in her surroundings.

 

A small, wooden bookshelf sits above the bed and Brianna sees with a smile titles that she has seen in her Da’s study- Homer’s _Odyssey,_ Virgil’s _Aneid_ as well as the dark, imposing morocco bound leather cover of Tolstoy’s _Anna Karenina_ as well as books that she treasures herself. Charlotte Bronte’s _Jane Eyre,_ Mary Shelley’s _Frankenstein_ and George Eliot’s _Middlemarch_ \- old favourites that she thinks of as close friends.

 

A mirror hung in a carved, dark wood frame sits on a plain dressing table where a glass backed hairbrush sits beside a Delft painted ewer and looped around a flourished corner, is the glint of the beaded metal necklace of armed forces’ dog tags.

 

**Bruce. J. R**

**Wing Commander**

**Service No. 430067**

 

Feeling like a thief in the night, Brianna moves slowly to the table, easing the paper gently from the frame. It is good quality photographic paper that is faded with age and exposure, that crinkles between her fingers.

 

It shows a young man in a pilot’s uniform standing to attention at the camera. His face is set and pale, with high cheekbones and a mop of dark hair just visible under his peaked cap. His nose is hooked above a small, handlebar moustache and his eyes, Brianna thinks, are kind.

 

‘My Da’, Mhairi’s voice is a murmur at her shoulder that makes her jump, a small sad smile flicking at her lips when Brianna turns wide eyes to her.

 

‘RAF. Died in a direct hit over the North Sea in ’40. They… They told me that his body was never recovered.’

 

‘I’m sorry,’ Brianna murmurs; the dull ache of shared pain throbbing through her heart.

 

_Remembers seeing her Mother sitting at the kitchen table, her head in her hands, the glint of something metal peeping through a closed fist. The carved frame that houses her parents’ wedding photograph sat on the table beside an undrunk thimble of whisky, her Da standing straight and tall and proud in his Fraser tartan, beaming out of the frame, the smile that she had missed so much crinkling at the corner of his lips._

_Remembers the weight of questions that her ten-year-old self had not had the words to ask burning on her tongue as she had seen those bright whisky coloured eyes glow out of a pale, haunted face as if seeing her for the first time._

_It had been late in the evening, well past her bedtime and the lamps in the kitchen and the hallway had burnt low in their wicks._

_‘Brianna? What are you doing up, mo chuisle?’_

_Her Mother’s voice had sounded hoarse and strange, strangled with after-sobs._

_‘I…’_

_She remembers biting her lip, curling bare toes against the chill of the carpet in the passageway._

_‘I couldna sleep, Mam. I…I keep dreaming… Keep seeing…’_

_‘I know,’ Claire had murmured, reaching out a hand to her and drawing her close. She had smelt of mint and baked bread and sleep and Brianna had buried closer, futilely trying to stem the tears that had finally burst their boundaries and flowed in silent, unchecked anguish down her cheeks._

 

‘Don’t be,’ Mhairi says quietly, chancing a glance to her; those intense, green eyes glimmering with something that could be tears, or just a flicker of the dying light streaming in through the window.

 

‘My Da was in the Army. He doesn’t talk about it much, but… He was a POW for 5 years and… He’s back now, but he’s not the same. My family… We… It…’

 

Even as she says them, the words feel selfish, an agonising reminder to Mhairi of all that she has lost and all that Brianna has gained.

 

‘Aye, I suppose it wouldn’t be,’ Mhairi’s tone is thoughtful as she presses a chipped tea cup into Brianna’s hands and shoves a pile of papers off the bed that cascade to the floor in a flurry of tight, blue handwriting, patting the paisley coloured coverlet invitingly.

 

‘Not that I’d know,’ she says quietly, blowing on her tea and dipping her gaze away from Brianna.

 

‘I’m an only child myself. Mam ran off with a good-for-nothing wastrel when I was born and left her sister, Aunt Margery tae bring me up. Poor old dear,’ a small, black laugh echoes through the room at that and Brianna feels a shiver that has nothing to with the chilled evening air ripple down her spine.

 

_To be left._

_To be left and unloved, to be…_

_She can’t imagine it._

_Can’t imagine being left alone with Faith and Willie, or worst of all, on her own, without someone who loved her with the wholeheartedness of her parents._

‘Didna… Didn’t… Didn’t she love ye?’

 

Her voice sounds impossibly small in the silence.

 

‘Love me? Oh, I’ve no doubt that she loved me in her own way, but…’

 

 The strange, green eyes are shuttered and distant, gazing inward at memories that Brianna is not privy to, her voice a sad, bitter laugh.

 

‘But?’

 

Tentatively, Brianna reaches out to grip Mhairi’s hand, wanting to hold her, to bring some sort comfort to this vivacious girl who has been so dealt such a rotten hand in life.

 

‘But nothing,’ she sighs, raking a hand through her hair, carding out her curls, a small, quick smile flickering across her lips.

 

‘It’s not for ye to worry about. She was my Mother and if she wanted tae run off wi’ a wastrel an’ forget that she even had a bairn, then that was her loss and no’ mine. Aunt Margery always said that she was a flighty thing, even as a hen. Perhaps having a babbie wasna for her.’

 

‘But your Da, surely…’

 

Her tea has long grown cold and she rests the cup on her lap, trying to process what she’s just heard.

 

‘Da was in the RAF. Flying, being wi’ his men, being in the air was his life, his reason to exist, if ye will. He didna want his wings to be clipped for the sake of a squalling, red faced thing.’

 

A small, choked breath hitches in Brianna’s throat at that.

 

Mhairi shakes her head, a bleak laugh cascading from her throat as she glances at the faded photograph.

 

‘Though they sent me his dog tags, when he didna return. That’s something, I suppose.’

 

‘Aye,’ Brianna replies quietly, squeezing the older girls’ hand lightly in her own.

 

‘I suppose it is.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please feel free to read and review! Comments, suggestions, questions, constructive criticisms etc are like chocolate to my brain! 
> 
> Much love and enjoy x 
> 
> Gaelic and Polish translations: 
> 
> ‘Ma tha obair an-còmhnaidh ann airson do làmhan a dhèanamh.  
> Ma bhios do sporan daonnan a 'cumail bonn no dhà.  
> Ma bhios a 'ghrian an-còmhnaidh a’ deàrrsadh air a 'phìos uinneig agad.  
> Bi cinnteach gum bi bogha-bogha a 'leantainn gach uisge.  
> Bidh làmh charaid daonnan faisg ort agus  
> Gu bheil Dhia a 'lìonadh do chridhe le aoibhneas a bhith gad bhrosnachadh.’ = 
> 
> ‘May there always be work for you to do,  
> May your purse always hold a coin or two,  
> May the sun always shine upon your window pane,  
> May a rainbow be certain to follow each rain,  
> May the hand of a friend always be near you and may God fill your heart with gladness to cheer you’ 
> 
> ‘Już nigdy nie będzie tak samo! Zniszczyłem to!’= ‘It will never be the same again! I have ruined it!’ 
> 
> ‘Mo ghaul agus mo bheannachdan uile, pluithair beag’ = All my love and blessings, little sister


	29. An Escape

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On a rare day of freedom from children and responsibility, Claire and Jamie take the dog and a picnic and head to Blaich in an attempt to reconnect with the land around them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to everyone who has taken the time to read and review this story! Your feedback and support mean the world to me! 
> 
> This chapter would not have been possible without @abbydebeau, whose support and guidance for this story means more to me than I can coherently put into words.

**Lallybroch**

**September 1946**

 

The first week or so after Brianna first leaves for Glasgow is one that Jamie spends in a daze. They are days in which he roams the estate like one lost, finding himself again and again up at Barlochhan and the soft, MacGregor eyes of Kirsty Fraser, going over the deeds to the house and the farm, trying to keep his mind from wandering.

 

‘Ye’ll let us keep it, though, won’t ye? The deed’s in Joe’s name… But…’ She had sniffed and fumbled in her skirt for a handkerchief, turning away to blink away the too-quick tears, the sound of her husband’s name still raw in her mouth.

 

There had been a vase of late summer harebells on the windowsill and a framed sampler tacked onto the wall, the hum of the kettle on the range speaking to Jamie of all of the conversations that he’d had with Joe in this room, lapsing easily into their childhood Gaelic, loud in the silence.

 

‘Aye,’ he had replied quietly, the memories of Joe’s body, that had not belonged to Joe anymore, cold and heavy in his arms; the dark, quick eyes milk-white and red-rimmed once the scarlet soiled bandage that had been wrapped around his eyes had been removed, floating painfully to the surface of his physche.

_Remembers the thin, bony, blood crusted fingers quivering up to cup his cheek, his speech slow and slurred with unendurable agony._

_‘Remember… Remember me tae Kirsty an’ the weans, won’t ye, mo chariad? Bonny Hector… Tell him… Tell him that I’m proud o’ him and wee Mairi… Keep them… See them safe… See Lallybroch safe…’_

From the hallway, the front door had slammed shut and glancing to the kitchen window, he had seen the tall, dark shadow of Hector tramping out across the moor.

 

The deeds lay between them on the scrubbed Oak table, silent and watchful, the ink on Joe and Brian Fraser’s signatures faded to a pale, scrawled brown with age.

 

‘Before he died, Joe made me promise that I’d keep the house and the farm for ye, _a leannan.’_ He had taken Kirsty’s hands between his own then and squeezed them lightly, the fine, small bones worn down from years of toil and care almost lost within his own.

 

She had nodded, biting her lip against a fresh wave of tears, holding his gaze with wide, deep eyes sparked through with unshed emotion.

 

‘I mean tae keep that promise. Tae see this farm pass doon to Hector if he wants to take it,’ a quick, rueful smile that is tinged with pain had quirked at the corners of her lips and he had smiled in reply.

 

‘Ye willnae be let out intae the cold, lass. That I promise ye.’

 

* * *

 

 

The last of the summer heat on a quiet Sunday morning, when he is not needed for door duty at Kirk floods through the covered walkway as Jamie slowly shifts the last of the boxes that he has been sorting in the workshop into a more comfortable position against his chest. Autumn is coming, the air changing, the first, tentative bites of a frost sharp on the wind.

 

It has been a long and painful process sorting out the workshop, reinvigorating the tiny space after nearly six years of neglect, dragging up memories that would rather be left alone.

 

And yet it must be done.

 

It must be done because then and only then will the memories slowly begin to surface, would the wounds that are laid so deep within his soul that he feels them only as a twinging ache, be able to heal.

 

‘Jamie?’

 

Claire’s voice startles him from his reverie like a quick twist to the wrist.

 

Dimly, he hears the click of the stillroom door being pulled to, quick footsteps closing the space between them.

 

‘Are you alright, my love?’ Her palms are hard and rough with years of callouses as they cup his cheek, tracing the lines and bends of bones with gentle firmness.

 

‘Aye, _mo nighean don,’_ he murmurs, pulling her close to press a soft, hidden kiss deep within her mass of curls; the dark tangle of untameable curls lightening with age, tangling through his fingers.

 

‘Just…’ He swallows thickly, feeling the weight of the whisky coloured eyes that he loves with all his heart burn into the depths of his soul.

 

‘Just memories, ye ken?’

 

_Memories that still, even now, almost a year later since he stepped off the train at Inverness, into the strange, new world of freedom, he cannot bear to give voice to._

Her fingers tighten against his cheekbones, the pressure pulling against taut, bright skin.

 

A deep, steadying breath echoes through her, her eyes never leaving his face. Taking in the haunted shadows that had greeted him as he had scraped his razor across his chin that morning, the gaunt gullies that slash across his cheekbones.

 

‘Tell me?’

 

_Tell me._

_Share your pain with me._

_Please._

Part of him wishes that he could, without feeling as though he is unfairly burdening her with worries that are his and his alone to bear.

 

And yet as he holds those deep, dark eyes sparking with such fire that he can never tire of, he knows that that it is far from the truth.

 

‘ _You know I would,’_ her eyes seem to say, holding his; a soft, sad smile playing on her lips in answer to an unasked question.

 

‘ _I would go through fire and ice for you, James Fraser. To Hell and beyond, if it came to that. Please. Please, just trust me.’_

‘I…’

 

He stops and swallows, trying to master himself, the words that he knows must be said falling back into nothingness.

 

She waits, the morning light spilling in shadows across her face, her eyes soft and deep with love.

 

She looks tired, he thinks; despite the sun, the toil of running the estate with her own work as a travelling GP for the hill crofts and villages running between Broch Mordha and Inverness alongside preparing for Faith’s wedding, showing in the paleness of her face, the new creases that grace her forehead, the soft, dark smudges that caress her lower lids.

 

_Mo nighean don._

_Mo Sorcha._

_Mierleach mo chridhe,_ he had called her in his wedding toast, the words so beautifully apt to the woman who had stolen his heart in the hush of the hospital, her face set and white, her eyes clear with concentration as she had tended to his bloody back.

 

 Out on the laundry green, the soft chorus of the chickens scratching out the morning dust comes slowly, floating faintly through the morning breeze. The sun is just rising, the dawn unlocking itself in incremental shades of pink and grey over the trees that shelter the loch.

 

He sighs, a deep, explosive thing that aches through his chest and reaches to take hold of her fingers that cup his cheeks, relishing in the weight of their joined skin.

 

She nods quietly, eyes shining, willing him on.

 

‘I… I dream sometimes-‘the words come haltingly, aching and broken to his tongue.

                            

‘About, about what was done to me in… In Austria…’

 

They are out before he’s truly understood that he’s said them, hanging in the space between them for a brief moment before crashing to the ground, never to be uttered again.

 

She presses closer, the weight of their joined skin grounding him.

 

Another nod, short and reassuring, her hands tightening their pressure against his skin.

 

 _Go on_ , her eyes seem to say, soft and wide with love and worry.

 

‘I… I’m in a prison cell, I canna remember what I was put in there for… An’ they… They…’

 

_They had come as the night role call had been made, the tramp of their boots crashing through his head as he had sat and shivered in the corner of the cell that was only big enough to squat in, curling his long limbs about him, trapped in an agony of waiting._

_The stone walls had dripped with water; ice cold rivulets mingled with the high, sharp scent of fear-sweat that prickled against every inch of his skin._

_‚March es an!‘_

_Three words barked out into the silence._

_The creak of a pressured tap, the weight of hollow, bloody breathing silenced by the blasting rush of a torrent of water, his body being flung back against the wall._

‘They thought to do it to break us. To show us that any resistance was futile. To…’

 

‘It doesna happen often’, he says quietly, holding her gaze, trying to force the memories back. ‘Just… Just when the season’s changing and I… I can feel the chill of it…’

 

She doesn’t reply, but reaches for him, standing on tiptoe to press a soft, chaste kiss against his forehead, her fingers tangling themselves in his curls.  

 

‘Thank you,’ the words are little more than a whisper behind the second kiss, murmured against his skin. ‘For telling me.’

 

* * *

 

‘Shall we go out for the day?’

They are in the kitchen, the soft morning light playing at the windows, Bran’s head a comfortable, grizzled weight against Jamie’s knee; the bright, yellow gleaming up at him. His fingers dig absentmindedly into the dogs’ skull, the bite of old and wiry fur digging under his cuticles.

 

The light is soft and dappled from the small window set deep in the wall across from the AGA, the kitchen humming on the stove. The ghosts of children’s footsteps echo through the hallway and down the passageway, the house sighing in the silence.

 

Claire watches him from the AGA, cradling her mug of tea, a soft smile playing across her lips.

 

‘Why not? As far as I know, Faith’s gone into Broch Mordha with Albert and William’s up at Kenny Lindsay’s for the day, helping bring in their silage.’

 

‘Good lad,’ Jamie murmurs, thinking of William’s bright, freckled face as it had been the previous evening, tawny eyes glowing as he regailed the table with tales of his escapades up at Boreland Lodge.

 

‘Aye, I think we should,’ he raises his brows at her in mock severity, a master admonishing a troublesome pupil, his tone softening as he sees her brows rise. ‘Ye need to at least, _mo nighean don._ Ye’ve barely sat down since Faith an’ Albert announced their engagement.’

 

She shoots him a dark look, but it is one that cannot hide her smile as she moves away from the AGA to perch on the arm of the carved rowan wood chair that had been Brian Fraser’s throne when he was a lad.

 

‘Where shall we go then, if we’re going at all?’

 

A small smile nips at her lips and he grins back at her, the weight of all of the worries and cares from the last few months falling away from her face until she looks just like the young nurse that he remembers falling hopelessly in love with back at Sandhurst.

 

‘Loch Eil? I havena been up there for years. We could catch a bus from Broch Mordha to Blaich and take the dog and a picnic? Get the last bus back?’

 

She nods, considering him.

 

Anxious not to be left out of the plans, Bran pads over to Jamie’s chair and shoves his large, grizzled head under his arm, tongue lolling in a bare jawed grin, yellow eyes glinting wolfishly up at him.

 

`Bran _,_ ye old rascal,’ Jamie cannot help but laugh, digging his fingers into the dog’s scalp. ‘As if we could ever forget ye, aye?’

 

‘There’s bread in the bread bin, cold meat and cheese in the pantry and there should be some of last year’s elderflower wine left over…’

 

Claire is already planning an inventory before the thought has even caught up with him and the old dog shifts his massive head, fixing him with a yellow, wolfish stare, jaws opening up in a yawn.

 

Popping her head out from the larder, Claire rolls her eyes at husband and dog and throws an old wicker basket, lined with a red and white spotted gingham into Jamie’s arms.

 

* * *

 

They catch a bus from Broch Mordha to Blaich that is just about to leave, leaping up the steps as if they were newly weds again and not with three nearly grown up children and nearly twenty years of marriage under their belts.

 

Bran gambles between them, jaws wide and grinning, barking his head off at the racket and is nearly lost entirely until Jamie grabs the scruff of his neck and firmly loops the lead over his head, pulling him up short with a yelp.

 

‘Off fer a day in the country, are we?’

 

The bus driver, a man whom neither of them know, grins at them as he accepts their fare, eyes flicking up in surprise as he takes in Jamie’s height, the cloth cap pulled rakishly down over one eye.

 

A flicker of something that could be recognition passes through the old, cragged face, the small dark eyes lighting up for the smallest of moments but is gone before either of them can truly register it.

 

‘Alright, _Sassenach_?’ Jamie laughs at his wife, planting his feet and digging his fingers into Bran’s fur to keep him from dragging him up the bus. A few heads turn his way, laborers making the most of the Sabbath with their sweethearts in shirt sleeves, slacks and printed cotton dresses, a doe-eyed woman with two bairns beside her; wide, grey- eyed lassies with stubs of blonde plaits and rosebud mouths slick with toffee. They shrink close to their Mam as Bran shoves his nose at them, yellow eyes wide and gleaming, squealing as the whiskery snout bristles against bare, soft skin.

 

‘ _Thig a-mach às a sin,_ Bran,’ Jamie raises his eyebrows at the dog, who grins back at him, the brindled fur around his muzzle shot through with sparks of white, standing stark against the deep, dark bed of grey and brown.

 

‘My apologies, mistress,’ he murmurs to the woman, who blushes and dips her gaze away at being addressed so formally. Feeling the quirk of a smile curling at the corner of his lips, he tips his cap at the lasses, who titter and giggle as he moves away.

 

Claire is hatless and laughing, her hair curling sweetly about her face when he reaches her, her eye shining as she shifts the picnic basket onto her lap to clear the seat that she has saved for him.

 

‘Still got the old charm I see,’ she dimples up at him, eyes shining as the bus rumbles and lurches into life, trundling up the main street and out of Broch Mordha.

 

‘I think it’s a bit rusty myself, actually,’ he murmurs back, leaning over to kiss her gently, lips lingering over the soft curve of her cheek.

 

‘Never,’ she murmurs back, the word caught around a smile as she snuggles in close, pillowing her head in the crook of his shoulder blades.

 

Outside the bus windows, the countryside rushes past in a blur of brown and green and grey, the hours slipping away as September unfolds itself through the softly changing colours on the trees.

 

Keeping a firm hand on Bran’s head, Jamie presses close to Claire, resting his chin against her unruly crown of curls, watching the landscape that he had once known like the back of his hand flood back into being.

 

They creep slowly over the last hill, the glen stretching far out beneath them, the faint heather heath of the Grampians shrouded with a crown of cloud rising thick and black far out in the distance. 

 

Loch Eil is a large bowl of black water tucked away at the bottom of the glen and then, the small cluster of dark, wet stone houses of Blaich, scattered around the loch like fishermen standing for their catch.

 

As the bus makes the steep descent, he can just make out bairns playing in the gardens, the billow of the weekend wash soft on the wind, the soft, sharp scent of bog myrtle and salt fresh to his nostrils. It feels impossible that the war has likely touched this safe, secluded little haven, ripping away fathers from their families, plucking men from the loch shore mending their nets like a silent, black talloned vulture.

 

Beside him, Claire stirs, blinking away her sleep; a soft, bonny smile catching at the corners of her lips.

 

Bram shifts and whines under his hand, the rough, pink tongue lolling out to lick his palm.

 

‘Are we there yet?’

 

Her eyes are wide and shining from sleep, her hair a tousled crown tangled about her face.

 

‘Aye, _Sassenach,’_ he answers her with a kiss, squeezing her hand lightly in his own. Giggling like a lass, she bats him away, gathering the picnic basket and clicking her tongue for the dog.

 

* * *

 

Lugging the picnic basket between them, they take a turn around the loch, the towering shadow of Gulvain black and looming out of the clouds.

 

Bran bounds on ahead, skittering through the litter of wild growing broon and heather and Jamie cannot help but laugh, turning his face skyward, the chill of the wind slapping against his skin, taking his breath away.

 

Overhead, the pewitts cry out in the silence, their songs soft and sure on the breeze, the land enveloped in the soft, rank smell of rain and wet heather.

 

He exhales slowly, letting the scent of it consume his tattered lungs, the scent of heather, bog myrtle, peat and gorse flooding his senses entirely bringing him home.

 

He cannot help but laugh, the sheer joy of being outside, being back where he belongs, in a place that does not hold the memories which he is still trying to come to terms with at Lallybroch, utterly infectious to his soul.

 

_A Dhia!_

_This… This was what freedom was!_

_This… To feel the wind pulse through his soul, his heart loud in his ears, the sun wheeling out to the afternoon, the hum of the land deep in the air as crisp and sweet and clear as the heather that runs in a great, sloping carpet down to the loch shore._

_This was what his heart had yearned for during those long, cramped hours spent crushed in that achingly small space with men who were merely shadows of themselves, unable to breathe lest they should choke on the stale, fetid stink of fear and death that clung to every moment of their incarceration._

‘Are you alright?’

 

Claire gives him a quizzical, lopsided smile, her eyes shining at his joy, squeezing his hand lightly within her own.

 

They have climbed the slope on the west side of the loch and have reached the carved lovers’ seat that looks down over the glen, Blaich snoozing soft and rain washed beside the water.

 

The picnic basket lies open between them, hunks of bread torn off and eaten with thick slices of cold ham and Broch Mordha sheep’s cheese. Bran lies at their feet, panting from the climb and his excursions into the heather, his jaws wide in a wolfish smile.

 

Against the water, the great hulking shadows of Gulvain and Braigh na Uamhachan tower thick and dark above the loch, the nestled shadows of Kinlocheil white and shining in the soft, storm tossed light.

 

Claire turns to him, the soft afternoon light catching at her curls, one hand reaching out from where it rests against the fine grained wood and resting against his own, their fingers quivering against each other.  

 

‘Aye, _mierleach mo chiride,’_ he murmurs, unable to stop the smile from quirking at his lips as he sees her eyes widen at the Gaelic.

 

‘ _Mierleach mo chiride,’_ she repeats, testing the syllables against her tongue. ‘That’s a new one. I don’t think I’ve ever heard you use it before, at least not as far as I can remember.’

 

‘Thief of my heart,’ he grins, drawing her close, twisting a loose light shot curl against his finger.

 

‘Which ye are, if ye recall. Only took ye standing over my bed at the hospital at Sandhurst wi’ your pale, set face, holding a bowl full of bloody metal for me tae fall hopelessly in love wi’ a bonnie _Sassenach_ nurse who spent the time telling me tae hold still whilst she plucked asphalt out o’ my bloody back and ken that it was she with whom I wanted tae spend the rest of my days with.’

 

He grins at her, taking in her raised eyebrows and has to bite back a laugh as she shakes her head in disbelief, leaning over to kiss her gently, lips brushing against the chill clarity of her cheek.

 

She scoffs at him, batting away his advances in mock outrage.

 

‘You were half out of your mind with pain and morphine, as I recall, _Captain.’_ Laughing, she mimes throwing her bread and cheese at him, making him duck.

 

‘Aye, maybe so, but the point still stands. Ye were the most beautiful lass that I’d ever seen.’

 

He reaches for her again, slowly twisting a loose curl against his finger, the dappled fire of brown and gold that is now sparked through with just a hint of silver.

 

Her replying smile is soft, her demeanour shy, the whisky coloured eyes that he loves so much gleaming with questions.

 

‘Am I still?’

 

‘Aye, _m’annsachd,’_ he murmurs in reply and she smiles, nestling close so that she can rest her head on his shoulder, looking out over the soft, dark shadows of the glen stretched far out beyond them, snug and safe together in each other’s warmth. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please feel free to read and review! 
> 
> Comments, suggestions, constructive criticisms etc are like chocolate to my brain!
> 
> Much love and enjoy x
> 
> German and Gaelic translations: 
> 
> 'Mach es an' = turn it on 
> 
> 'Mierleach mo chiride' = thief of my heart
> 
> 'Thig a-mach as a sin' = come away from there


	30. A Bouquet of Pink Roses

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On the 20th May 1947, the Hon. Faith Janet Fraser, eldest child of Laird and Lady Broch Tuarach marries Doctor Albert Ferdinand Peterson

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to everyone who has taken the time to read and review this! Your support for this story and encouragement means more to me than I can say.

**20 th May 1947**

Someone has left the tap on in the lavatory next to her parents’ bedroom.

                         

Faith can hear it dripping slowly, the water puddling against the enamel sink as she sits in the wingbacked chair by her bed, her eyes aching with exhaustion to which her body is utterly unable to succumb.

 

Her feet are curled up under her nightdress, her toes toying with the wicker lattice that prickles under the soles of her feet.

 

It is a still, cool night that is rimmed with a frost of stars, picked out over the great shadow of the ash tree that sheltered the witches’ cauldron where she and Brianna and William had made up so many of their games as children.

 

Leaning against the window frame, the breeze a cool ripple against her skin, she thinks that she can hear the ghosts of that laughter, five years and a lifetime ago.

 

Thinks that she can just make out the glimmer of Brianna careering wildly through the long tangle of wildflowers, throwing herself behind the safety of the tree and being dragged away, squealing and kicking by Young Jamie Murray, to the delight of his siblings. Can hear the gurgle of William’s laughter, desperately trying to keep up with his older siblings and cousins, hatching plans with Young Ian to ambush the older ones and make them open up their games.

 

_Brianna._

Her name is a sob to her heart, choked up and agonised in the silence that until so very recently would have been broken by the quick, three tap knock that had been their secret signal for as long as she can remember.

 

And with the disappearance of Brianna’s name comes another.

_Albert._

 

Sitting alone in the quiet, his name comes quietly to her; the soft, dark face with the wide hazel eyes like pools of molten autumn light and the birth freckle which she loves so much that tugs at his left eyelid, making it look slightly slanted.

 

The soft smattering of freckles that graced the long, straight nose in summer.

 

 The weight of his hands; long, calloused, work worn fingers holding her, dwarfing her own as they had done that afternoon as he left her in the kailyard, soft in the sun soaked afternoon quiet for Balmaclellan under the watchful, winking eyes of Uncle Ian and Young Jamie.

 

 _‘I love you,_ _meine Geliebte,‘_

_The kiss had been soft and giving, brushing lightly against her lips, drawing her close so that she stood eye to eye with him, her fingers tangled in his hair, drinking in the soft, smoky taste of him._

_‘I love ye too. Have fun, mo chuisle.’ The words had been lost against his lips as he had pulled her away, grinning down at her wide eyes, his own soft and dear with love._

 

_And he had held her hand in a lingering squeeze, fingers gripping and falling away as he had moved away to be clapped on the shoulder by her uncle and cousin, their laughter echoing long after their shadows had left the shade of the archway._

A shiver courses through her at the memory, rippling down her spine.

 

It is as if she had watched her childhood walk out with Albert, Uncle Ian and her cousin from under the arch and slip into the soft, dapples of the early evening light.

 

_Gone so quietly, never to be seen again now that she is to be wed come the morning and oh how her heart cries for it!_

 

Over the moor, the screech of an owl pierces the night and the wisteria rustles against her window, the soft, dark leaves fluttering faintly in the quiet.

 

The house seems to sigh with it, the creak and groan of the pipes heaving above her head, her fingers cold and stiff against the bare wood of the windowsill.

 

From the landing the grandfather clock chimes in the hour and a sudden spasm of panic grips her.

 

It is a panic that had been such a game when she and Brianna had been bairns and shared a room, listening to the comforting, combined tread of their parents’ footfalls coming in to check on them when they should have been asleep.

 

Remembers the desperate scramble from the bed to the window, the rustle of the coverlet, the chill of four feet gripping, kicking, jostling against the sheets.

 

Remembers the unrestrained giggles that had burst from their lips as they had heard their parents’ footsteps slow and then the creak of the door opening, a burst of the oil lamp and two glowing, beaming faces jumping out of the shadows that had made Brianna squeal and cling to her in fright, fingernails digging into her nightdress, burying her head in her shoulder.

 

Shaking the memories away, she untangles herself from her chair and pulls the tattered tartan rug from her bed over her shoulders, shivering slightly as the tattered, wool itches across her skin.

 

There is an oil lamp still burning in the hallway as she makes her way downstairs and she is drawn to it like a moth to a flame, hoping that its guttering, dancing light will banish the fear that is tugging at her heart. 

 

* * *

 

‘What is it, Faith? Can ye no sleep, _mo chuisle?’_

 

Her parents are sat at the scrubbed kitchen table with the remains of bread and cheese and thimblefuls of sherry between them when she enters. Bran, curled up in his basket in the back passage, gives a disgruntled ‘whuff’ of surprise at the audacity of his dreams being disturbed as the door clicks shut.

 

The lights are soft and low, throwing strange shadows against the green velvet sofa that she had curled up on with a book so many times as a child, her grandmother’s duck egg blue vase spilling over with shots of dusky pink rhododendrons. An inventory of the dishes to be served at the reception is pinned to the larder door, Faith’s heart quickening at the sight of it.

 

Her reflection is ghostly in the window, tall and pale, her freckles standing in stark relief against the paleness of her skin.

 

‘Come here, _mo leannan.’_ Her father’s hands are large and secure, his eyes wide with unasked questions, cupping her elbow, drawing her to him.

 

He holds her gently, steering her to the comfort of his lap, her mother’s eyes softening as they hold her own.

 

‘What’s troubling you, love?’

 

Claire’s eyes shine out of a pale face framed with her tangle of chaotic curls, her hand reaching out to trace the curve of Faith’s cheek.

 

The weight of her mother’s fingers hold her, the whisky coloured eyes deep and unwavering.

 

‘It’s…’

 

She shakes her head at the notion; a foolish, half-formed thought that she cannot find the right words to try and explain. In the shadows behind her, she feels rather than sees her father’s nod, the weight of his chin thudding into her shoulder blades.

 

Feels the weight of his fingers leaving her shoulders to lose themselves in her hair, the weight of them lightly carding out the mess of auburn curls that now reaches her shoulders.

 

The weight of Albert’s ring, her grandmother’s ring, holds her, her fingers twisting the silver circlet against her knuckle over and over again as she struggles to find the right words.

 

_In her minds’ eye, she is back in the yard of Broch Mordha’s hospital, back trembling with the weight of Ebren Krause’s death tugging at her heart, threatening to pull her under in the soft, dappled light of the horse chestnut tree._

_Back remembering that first, tentative, impulsive kiss in the dappled shadows that had been followed by so many others._

_Remembers the weight of his hands cupping her cheek and then the spell had been broken, she flustered, he appalled, drawing back until they were quite apart, staring at each other, horrified at the silent gulf that they had crossed without knowing how._

_‘That was impulsive of me, I didn’t… I’m sorry…’_

_‘Ye did,’ and she had smiled without knowing why and watched him kneel to her in the soft, wet mulch of grass and fallen leaves, holding out the large, work worn hands that she loves the touch of, to her._

 

She had known then that she loved him, would give her life for him; but now Albert is at Balmaclellen and she is alone, unsure of what the future holds.

 

‘I’m… I’m feared, Da,’ she mumbles at last, burying her head in Jamie’s chest, tears that she doesn’t remember shedding suddenly choking her throat.

 

‘Aye, _m’eudail_ ,’ he murmurs back, his voice soft and sure, his hands working slowly up and down her back, pressing deep into the crown of her skull, as if she was a frightened foal or a kine in labour with a difficult calf. ‘I’d be worried if ye weren’t.’

 

She feels her Mother press closer; a soft, lost kiss whispered against her ear.

 

Feels her Da’s head shift against hers to Claire, their eyes locked in silent question.

 

‘We can still call the wedding off, if you’d like, love. If you think that it’s too soon…’

 

Claire’s voice is tentative, but Faith shakes her head, her eyelids thick and heavy, the words that she wants to say dying against drowsy lips.

 

Instead, she buries her head into Jamie’s chest, watching Claire’s face dance in and out of the dim lamplight through heavy, unseeing eyes. The steady expansion and contraction of her Da’s lungs are a heavy, reassuring comfort, one that in those dark, fearful first days after his return, she had feared that she would never hear again.

 

The thought tightens in her throat, shards of salt smarting painfully at the corners of her eyes, a small sob lost in the quiet against the linen of Jamie’s shirt.

 

‘It’s… It’s no’ that…’

 

‘Then what, lass?’

 

The weight of her Da’s index finger tracing the line from cheek to jaw, fingers reaching gently to cup her chin, drawing her head up to meet his deep, questioning gaze.

 

‘It’s… It’s just… I’m feared that… I’ll leave ye an’ lose ye an’ I’ll never…’

 

Her words come out as a choked, gulping sob, trailing off into nothing as she buries her head back into the darkness of her Da’s shirt, not wanting to meet his gaze.

 

‘Och, lass,’ the words are a deep, rumbling sigh that comes from the base of Jamie’s being, the weight of his hand reaching to cup her chin, a small smile hiding in the corners of his lips, holding her gaze.

 

She returns it slowly, painfully, his face swimming disjointedly out of tear washed eyes.

 

‘We will always be here for ye, _a leannan._ Always.’ The pad of his thumb presses deep into the pit of Faith’s jaw and she nods slowly, watching the large, blue eyes soften slowly as he takes her in

 

. Beside her, Claire nods, a small smile quirking at the corners of her lips.

 

‘But Albert will be your family now, as much as we are. Remember that, aye?’

 

She nods again, a small, watery chuckle catching in her throat.

 

‘Aye. Thank ye, Da.’

 

He nods; his large, work worn hand reaching to hold her shoulders, drawing her close.

 

She buries into the waiting nest of his jersey, the prick of waulked wool a comfort to her cold, wet cheek, the lullaby of his heart slow and steady against her ear.

 

The last thing that she feels before she surrenders completely to the awaiting arms of Morpheus is the breath of her father’s lips against her cheek, the rasp of shaved skin prickling against her own, his words a murmured whisper in her ear.

 

‘May God and Mary always bless ye, _m’annsachd.’_

 

* * *

 

 The morning dawns bright and clear with the first, tentative hints of spring heat pricking at the air.

 

The larks and pewitts wheel and cry above the hills and in the soft, dawn stillness of the morning, mingled with the clatter of the breakfast things and Bran barking for his walk.

 

From the soft drowsiness of waking, Faith hears her Mam whipping the kettle off the AGA as it began its’ frantic whistle, the faint hum of the wireless as Big Ben chimes in the hour and her Da stamping back in through the kitchen from checking on the kine who were ready to calve.

 

Hears the slam of the front door and a cacophony of voices rising through the floorboards, knowing that is well past her time to be up, but longing at the same time to have the luxury of sleep for a few minutes more.

 

‘Faith? Are ye up, _mo chuisle?’_

 

Her Mam’s voice.

 

_How many times has she heard it floating up from the first floor landing, calling her for school and later, to the hospital?_

‘Aye, Mam!’

 

Her own voice sounds strange and soft in the quiet, not like her own voice at all.

 

Slowly, she slips from her bed, her toes curling instinctively away from the chill of the floorboards, passing the washstand to splash her face without looking at the mirror, wrapping herself in her dressing gown to pull open the door.

 

She looks a fright, she knows that, the weight of her hair curled and chaotic about her face, the chill of the water sparking her skin into wakefulness.

 

Claire is at the door, holding a large, long package wrapped in brown parcel paper and a large, black box, Maggie and Kitty Murray, already dressed in the simple dresses made of ivory parachute silk that Mrs Peterson had made up for them beaming at her with shining eyes.

 

In the silence, her heart aches for Brianna.

 

Aches for her sister’s soft, easy going laugh, for the twinkle in the slanted, Mackenzie blue eyes that they both shared, for the secret smile that quirked like their Da’s at the corner of her lips.

 

Brianna had sent a telegram two days ago saying that there was an exhibition of first years’ work that she could not miss and that if she was able to, she would try to catch an early morning train and be in Broch Mordha in time for the reception.

 

Faith’s heart aches that her sisters’ bright, infectious laugh is not the one that she had heard joining Maggie and Kitty on the stairs, or that the pale, bonny, freckled face is not one of the faces that beam at her from the doorway.

 

‘How do you feel on your wedding morn, Faith?’

 

Maggie’s eyes are bright but hold an understanding look that she is grateful for.

 

Kitty dissolves into a fit of giggles again and turns away, so that she can see her Mam’s soft and knowing eyes as they take in her pale, drawn face.

 

‘Fine’, she murmurs, the word tasting grey on her tongue, turning pleading eyes to Claire.

 

‘Can… Can ye help me, Mam?’

 

Claire’s eyes widen at the question, something that Faith can’t read sparking in the deep, hazel eyes.

 

‘Of course, _mo chiride’_ she replies quietly, nodding to Maggie and Kitty whose eyes widen and Kitty opens her mouth to protest before she is nudged in the ribs by her sister.

 

Faith cannot help but smile at that, nodding gratefully to Maggie who smiles a soft, knowing smile.

 

‘We’ll be downstairs if ye need us, Faith,’ she says quietly, dipping her head and pulling her sister away.

 

* * *

 

They spend the next few minutes sitting on the bed in companionable silence, the sleepy fear that had clutched at Faith’s heart in the dark of the night slowly disappearing as Claire steers her to the bathroom and tells her to wash her hair.

 

Faith goes willingly, but not before she has seen her Mother turn towards brown paper package on the bed and sniff heavily, swiping at her face impatiently with the back of her hand, her shoulders hunching in on herself for the briefest of moments as she slowly undoes the wrapping.

 

_Oh Mam!_

Faith’s heart tightens at that, a wedge of pain that she cannot give voice to lodging itself in her throat as she makes her way down the passageway, the comforting hum of voices- Aunt Jenny, Uncle Ian, Kirsty Fraser, Mrs Peterson, Maggie, Kitty, William and her Da as they finished the last minute preparations- floating up from the hallway and the kitchen beyond.

 

The water is soft and warm as she runs it, standing still and quiet in the room that had been the witness to the hinges of the day being reverently kept with her and her siblings.

 

Slowly, she lets her fingers run against the white enamel bath tub; the ghost of the sharp, homely scent of Pears’ soap hanging thick in the air, the rumble of her parents’ voices echoing off the bathroom acoustics, fuggy with heat, water and laughter.

 

Slipping into the soft, warm water, her hair fanning out in a heavy cloud behind her, she stares at the crack in the plaster above her head that she has never paid any attention to before today, trying not to think.

 

Trying not to think that this will be her last bath in this tub, the tub that Claire had bathed her in as a bairn when they had first moved up to Lallybroch from Sandhurst, long ago days that she cannot really remember.  Or else she had waged war with whoever she was being bathed with, splashing and squealing as the water hit her pale, tender skin, turning large reproachful eyes to whoever was supervising the session when they laughed.

 

She performs her toilette carefully, reaching up to the shelf above the bath for some of her Mothers’ homemade shampoo, the soft scents of lavender and geranium floating quietly through the air.

 

‘Faith? Are ye nearly ready, _mo chiride?’_

The sound of her Mam’s knock at the door jolts her out of her reverie, her skin puckered and wrinkled under the weight of the slowly cooling water.

 

‘Aye, just… Can ye give me a moment more, Mam?’

 

Her voice sounds strange in the quiet and she swallows, watching the water dripping onto the tiles beneath her feet, soaking the bathmat. A deep, shuddering exhale ripples through her then as she faces her reflection in the long mirror on the opposite wall, one that leaves her gasping, all the fears that have clung to her seem to fall away.

 

She looks something other than herself as she stands there, tall and white and naked in the soft, misty light of the bathroom. The light catches at the white, satin smoothness of her skin, extenuating the long, smooth lines that ran from waist to thigh and thigh to knee that she had always hated when she was a wean.

 

Had hated being so tall, so gangly and awkward, able to look the boys who had been her playmates in the eye and watch them flinch, unnerved that she could hold their gaze even when they tugged her plaits and teased her until her eyes had burnt with shame and she had longed to cry, knowing that that was exactly what they wanted.

 

She chides herself inwardly at that, shaking away the thought.

 

 She is not that child anymore, has not been that child since the war ripped her Da from the family and threw her into a strange, adult world of which she still knows so little about. 

 

 She is new and clean and expectant, shivering on the edge of something thrilling and unexpected, waiting for change that came like that of the seasons, the shape of the land waxing and waning in the glow of an afternoon.

 

* * *

 

The next few minutes pass in a blur.

 

The weight of her mother’s fingers lost deep in her hair ground her, the pull and scrape of short nails against her scalp utterly luxurious as Claire twists and teases her hair into a simple half bun, letting the rest of her hair cascade against her shoulders.

 

Faith half listens to her Mam’s prattle, her mind half a league away at Balmaclellan with Albert, in the small, smoky farm house kitchen and the warm, homely kindness of her Aunt and Uncle.

 

Albert would be in his wedding things now, she thinks, the long, doctors’ limbs supple and straight within the dark tweed suit that had been brought new, a richness and a rarity made a reality with months of saved clothing coupons.

 

Out of the corner of her eye, her grandmother’s wedding dress that had been her mother’s and now is hers, winks at her through the brown paper packaging from where it hangs on the back of her bedroom door.

 

The seed pearls sewn onto the delicate ivory silk glow through at her, catching at the light from her thistle down coloured underthings that had been embroidered like the rest of her trousseau with her initials, F J B F by Claire, Aunt Jenny and Brianna before her sister had left for Glasgow.

 

Behind her chair, she can hear her Mam rustling about in the boxes and wrappings that are strewn about on her bed, swearing softly to herself.

 

And then her Mam’s hands are pressed against her cheek, fingers splayed, softly whispering to her to close her eyes with a smile in her voice, as if she is a child again and they are playing hide and seek.

 

A moment of silence, in which the larks’ songs come up sweet and strong and true through the open window and the smell of the heather on the moor fills her senses. Almost as if she is somehow outside her body, she feels herself being dressed, her limbs moved without her will, like they belong to one of the dolls that she had played with as a bairn. The slow ripple of ivory silk against her breast, the ripple of satin skirts billowing against her calves.

 

The strange stabbing sensation of metal against her scalp, a slow exhale and she opens her eyes just a peek, the thud of her heart loud in her ears.

 

A girl whom she doesn’t recognise stares at her through the mirror.

 

A girl with a pale, freckled face that is framed by a sweeping mane of auburn curls pulled up and then cascading down her back, the glimmer of the Mackenzie tiara that was a part of her families’ folklore, the most precious part of Anne Grant’s dowry when she had married Red Jacob Mackenzie, peeking through the nest of her curls.

 

‘Oh… Oh Mam!’

 

The words come out as in a breathless sob, one that is choked in her throat as she sees Claire’s eyes glistening through the mirror, her hands soft and light on her shoulders.

 

‘You look perfect, lovey,’ her Mam says, the weight of her lips brushing a soft, chaste kiss in the depths of Faith’s hair, a pull of wistful sadness that she doesn’t understand tugging at the words.

 

‘Mam? What is it?’

 

Swivelling round in her chair, she sees her Mam’s large, whisky coloured eyes glistening with something that could be tears, swallowing slowly and bravely as she shakes her head and reaches out to cup Faith’s chin, pressing another kiss against her brow.

 

‘Nothing for you to worry about, _a leannan,’_ she murmurs, blinking the too-quick tears that tear at Faith’s heart, away.

 

‘Nay, Mam. That’s not… That’s not nothing,’ her voice sounds far older than she feels as she reaches for Claire’s hand, remembering all the times that she had found her Mam sat at the kitchen table, weeping silently during the worst moments of the war when she had found her way to the kitchen in the soft, black quiet of the night.

 

They had been nights when the sky was continuously lit up with the flash and crack of bombs far off in the bloody haze of the distance.

 

Nights when Brianna and William had crept into her bed, pale and scared and they had clung to each other with all the strength that they possessed, burying against each other’s warmth as the house had echoed with the rumble and crash of distant, unknown lives ruined in a moment.

 

 Claire nods, throwing her a small smile that lights up her eyes, sparks of hazel fire glistening in their irises.

 

‘No,’ she murmurs after a moment, groping for a handkerchief and dabbing fiercely at her eyes.

 

‘No, you’re right, _mo chiride._ It’s… It’s just that my Mam, your Beauchamp Grandma died… She died when I was five and…’

 

‘Aye,’ Faith murmurs, her heart softened to desperate tenderness, aching for the memory of a woman that she had never met.

 

Slowly, she reaches for Claire, wanting to hold her, wanting to be held.

 

‘She’d be so proud of you, Mam! If she saw, if she kent about all the things that ye’ve done, keeping the house, raising all of us whilst Da was away, being a GP, all on your own!’

 

‘Yes, well…’ A watery chuckle escapes her Mam’s lips, a small, warm sound that sets Faith’s heart ablaze. ‘I don’t want to think about what would have happened to you or Brianna had I not been here. You two were capable of too much mischief for the world to hold when you had a mind for it.’

 

‘Aye,’ Faith murmurs ruefully. ‘Sorry about that.’

 

‘Don’t be sorry, lovey. Ever. My God, I wouldn’t have had it any other way!’

 

Her laugh is soft and genuine, eyes shining as she steers Faith back to facing the mirror.

 

‘And neither would I.’ The creak of the bedroom being pulled and the soft murmur of her Da’s voice, lost in a kiss against her Mam’s neck, makes her jump and turn to see her Father watching them as silent as a cat from the doorway, resplendent in black tie.

 

The swing of his plaid; a deep, crimson Mackenzie tartan that she can’t remember ever seeing him wear, caught up to his shoulder with a simple, Highland interlace broach, the soft, black velvet of his jacket gleaming in the morning light.

 

The slanted cat-eyes that gleam down at her are soft with love as he moves to her in a single stride and presses a soft, chaste kiss against her cheek, the sharp tang of freshly shaved skin rasping against her cheek.

 

‘Ye look just like her, _mo nighean ruaidh.’_

 

His voice is a murmur, one that speaks of so many ghosts that she has no claim to and she nods, throwing him a tentative smile, hoping that the queasy butterflies that have taken flight in her stomach are not visible in her face. His hand; large, weathered and comforting rests on her shoulder as he kneels beside her chair, flicking his eyes up to Claire, who nods slowly, whisky eyes gleaming.

 

And before she knows what’s happening, Faith feels the weight of the pearls that had been her Da’s gift to her Mam on their wedding night, being looped against her neck, the baroque shimmer still warm from her Mam’s skin.

 

Instinctively, her hand reaches up to stop it, but Jamie bats it away, placing an unseen kiss deep in her hair.

 

‘I… Da… Mam… I canna… I canna wear these…’

 

Her voice is choked as the words come, turning wide, pleading eyes to them, hardly knowing what she’s saying.

 

‘Ye can, _m’annsachd.’_ Her Da’s voice is a murmur as his fingers expertly hook the clasps together, the warmth of his touch lingering against the back of her neck.

 

‘She would’ve wanted ye to.’

 

For a moment, their eyes meet in the mirror and she thinks that she can see it, just. See the ghost of the Mackenzie grandmother whom she never knew, flickering through her face. On her other side, Claire nods, eyes shining as she holds Jamie’s gaze, something soft and unspoken flickering between the pair of them.

 

She can just see the flicker of the woman whose portrait that had been completed just weeks before her death, that hung in the garret in an ornate, gilded frame. Can see just a shadow of that tall, imperious, aristocratic almost, woman with her wide blue-grey eyes, the kind that her Da had told her would go through whoever she was talking to like a bolt, straight to the heart.

 

‘D’ye think so?’

 

The question sounds childish in the quiet, but he nods, a small smile quirking at the corners of his lips. Standing and stretching and unfurling his long limbs like a cat, he draws her Mam close, tangling a finger in a loose, light shot curl until it just the three of them, caught forever in a snapshot of memory.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Her Da’s arm is steady and sure under her fingers as they make their way down the front staircase and into the hallway. The light is soft and dappled through the front door, which someone has festooned with greenery, the pale glow of wood anemones burning against the darkness of the foliage.

 

Heads turn as they approach, the hum of small talk fading into silence, the ripple of the dress’s gossamer train as light as air behind her, eyes widening, faces splitting into smiles.

 

From his perch on the sword chest at the foot of the stairs, William scrambles up from where he has been playing dominoes with Young Ian and Kenny Lindsay and stares at her; hazel eyes huge in his pale face.

 

Faith tries to swallow back the lump in her throat at the sight of her little brother, suddenly looking so grown up in a new shirt, dark green velvet jacket, a smaller version of their Da’s kilt and his very own sighean dhu gleaming at his leg.

 

Catching her eye, he grins and gives her a leg, making Kenny and Young Ian double up with laughter. The sight makes their Da laugh too, the sound warm and rumbling in his throat, raising his brows at his son.

 

Someone, Aunt Jenny perhaps, has scrubbed him within an inch of his life, so that his skin gleams red and ruddy, his crop of auburn curls sticking up in spikes. 

 

The faces seem to blur before her as they descend the last few steps.

 

She sees Maggie and Kitty beaming with pride as they take up their places to hold her train, places that they should be sharing with Brianna.

 

She sees Mhairi Fraser, suddenly shy against Kirsty’s skirts at the sight of her big cousin looking so grown up, her Mam accepting a dram from Michael Murray and talking quietly to Janet, her Uncle winking to her as he moves slowly through the crowd, bearing forth a small, square package.

 

‘Wee Albert’s at Kirk wi’ Young Jamie, _a chariad,’_ he murmurs to Jamie, who nods, eyes sharp and shining, clapping his brother-in-law on the shoulder.

 

‘Aye. _Taing gu,_ Ian.’

 

‘An’ this is fer ye, _mo nighean-peathar,’_ her Uncle says quietly, holding out the box to Faith, who accepts it with a kiss for Ian, the scrape of his newly shaved chin rasping slightly against her lips.

 

Wrapped in brown paper are shoes made of dark, glistening leather with soft, blue soles and a pair of slippers lined with lambs’ wool.

 

Faith cannot remember the last time that she saw anything so fine.

 

‘ _Taing gu, uncail,’_ she murmurs, dipping her head to see the shoes slip on, fitting against her feet as soft and as sure as a glove, unsure why she has slipped into Gaelic. The shoes are completely hidden under the wide skirts of her dress, but the feel of them, the knowledge of their newness against her feet makes her stand just a little taller as she lets the veil cascade from the tiara, obscuring her view in soft, white specks of light.

 

* * *

 

 

The wedding itself passes in a blur of moments that will imprint themselves on Faith’s brain forever.

 

Albert standing at the altar with Jamie Murray, tall and straight in their dark suits with matching dusky pink roses from Ellen Mackenzie Fraser’s briar in their buttonholes, their dark hair slicked back with pomade, hazel dark eyes shining with love. A flood of early summer sun pools against the font, the font where she was christened, where she had stood with her parents, starched in her Sunday best and watched the holy water trickle over her siblings’ heads, catching the flower arrangements tucked into the windows.

 

The shining bald pate of Father Cameron’s head as he opens his arms wide, the rosary tucked into his black vestments glinting in the light.

 

The starched white caps of the nurses from Broch Mordha hospital, gleaming in the light. Sister MacDonald’s weather-beaten face softening into a wrinkled smile, dark eyes gleaming as she takes in Faith, Sister Gregory sniffing and reaching for a handkerchief to dab away her tears.

 

The rustle of dresses, the nodding of flowers in hats, the crinkle of pressed suits, the quiet murmur of voices stilled to a hush as heads turn, all eyes on her, the Laird’s eldest daughter, soft and shimmering in an antique wedding dress.

 

She stands in the knave, heart thundering somewhere in her ears, her hand slick with sweat and trembling on her Da’s arm, forcing herself to swallow to clear her mouth.

 

Bright, blue cat eyes that are shining with love look down at her, holding her gaze, a small smile quirking at the corner of his lips. On his other side, her Mam and William are beaming at her, her Mam’s hand reaching across to press her knuckles, her own hands clamped firmly around the bouquet of soft pink summer roses, her eyes wide and shining.

 

‘Dinna be afraid, _mierleach mo chiride.’_ His voice is soft and low, a comforting rumble at the back of his throat, his large, workworn hand reaching over to grip her own.

 

‘I won’t,’ she manages at last, the words feeling impossibly small, trying a smile for him, eyes dancing up to Albert, who nods, her heart brimming over with love as the organ swells with the first, triumphant chords of the wedding march. ‘I’m not.’

 

‘I didna think ye were, _mo chuisle,’_ he murmurs back, reaching over to press a small kiss against her brow.

 

The walk up the aisle, each step drawing her closer to the man who has risked everything for her and she for him, knowing that she would do it all over again if she could.

 

And then, all too soon, it is over.

 

Without her consent, her feet have found their way to Albert and she is blinking away the light to look up into Albert’s dark, chiselled face, his hazel eyes gleaming down at her.

 

 _‘You look radiant,_ _meine Herz‘,_ he murmurs under his breath, accepting her hand from her Da.

 

‘Look after her, aye?’ The weight of her Da’s gaze holding her own in an unspoken pledge, the deep blue eyes soft and crinkled with love as he steps back, kilt swinging in the hush.

 

Albert nodding, the warmth and strength of his hands flooding through her, the large, long fingers pressing lightly against her own as he reaches over to draw her veil back from her face, the world shifting out of the shimmering silver curtain into full focus.

 

_Always._

 

The soft hum of his voice pledging to honour and cherish her for the rest of her days, the same words falling freely from her lips.

 

They are old words.

 

Old and lovely words that speak of the large, bronze leaved beech tree that stood tall and proud against a ruined croft on the distant edge of the moor that she and her siblings had used to play in whenever they would walk that way with their Mam and Bran, its’ branches caught on the soft blue lips of a summer sky.

 

 She holds his gaze, taking in the light that falls from his eyes, the quirk of the birth freckle tugging at the corner of his left eyelid that she had first noticed when they had knelt together beside Ebren Krause’s stretcher in the black muddle of 1942.

 

Her brothers’ face beaming up at her when he presents Albert with the rings, his chest puffed out in pride at the sanctity of the moment.

 

The weight of the ring, a simple gold band passing over the ridge of her knuckle, landing snugly at the base of her finger.

 

And then her Da steps out of the sunlight shadows, his dirk with the gold bands encasing the pommel gleaming against a line of white cloth.

 

His eyes are shining as he takes them both in, Albert’s wrist held in hers, palm up.

 

The tip of the blade scores their wrists lightly, the words that she had taught Albert on their many evening walks around the main loch, watching the dying evening light play against the ripple of the water, the soft scent of rhododendron mingled with the pungent tang of the undergrowth shielding them from the world. She feels rather than hears his sharp intake of breath, the uncomfortable shift in his posture, his reflexes screaming at him to pull away and looks up, inhaling deeply.

 

Horrified hazel eyes meet hers and she nods slowly, trying to tell him without words how much it means to her.

 

To all of them.

 

How much it means to her to have his blood, his pulse, his life, flowing freely with her own.

 

Twin lines of scarlet blood bubble up against the scars on their wrists, the weight of her Da’s hand placing them firmly against each other.

 

‘Repeat the words after me’, she murmurs, the weight of his wrist light against her own.

 

They are words older than the Kirk, older than the hills themselves and the sound of them sends a thrill to her heart.

 

At the edge of her vision, she sees Jamie Murray’s eyes soften, no doubt remembering all of the legends that had infused their evening story times before bed, of the way that no matter what the true story, their parents would change the story so that it would end in a kirk and these same words would be spoken as the hero and heroine pledged their undying love to each other.

 

She says them slowly, savouring their weight on her tongue, their united voices strong and sure and true in the hush.

 

And then his hand is reaching for her, cupping her cheek as they draw together.

 

His lips are soft and sure, firm and forgiving all at once and she can feel the smile behind it, grinning back in reply as the Kirk erupts in thunderous applause.

 

‘ _Will ye have me and all that I am?’_

_‘Always, mo chuisle. Always.’_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please feel free to read and review! 
> 
> Comments, suggestions, constructive criticisms etc are like chocolate to my brain! 
> 
> Much love and enjoy x


	31. Dancing by Moonlight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On the evening of her wedding, Faith receives an unexpected visitor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to everyone who has taken the time to read and review this! Your support for this story and encouragement means more to me than I can say and I am thrilled to present you with the final, pre-epilogue chapter of Vergangenheit.

**20 thMay 1947**

**Evening**

 

The edges of the world blur before Faith’s eyes as she is spun through the hall, the wicks of the oil lamps trimmed low so that the world is bathed in a comforting orange glow. The faded Union Jack bunting from the King’s coronation in 1937 when she was nine that had been unearthed in one of the attics has been strung up along the bannisters, interwoven with the dark green and white glow of wood anemones.

 

The weight of Albert’s hands encase her own, the simple gold band on her ring finger winking as it catches the light. His eyes are shining as they hold hers, laughing crinkles catching at their corners as he stumbles over the steps to the Duke of Perth, feather dark head thrown back in delight.

 

His hands are solid under her arms as they reach the end of the set, the glimmer of Aonghas Lindsay’s fiddle bow darting back into the shadows as he winks at Albert who has paused, head bent, hands on his knees, to catch his breath and tugs his forelock at her; his broad, cragged face flushed with heat and whisky.

 

‘Are you all right?’

 

She has to shout to make herself heard over the noise and Albert nods, drawing himself upright and bringing her close to tuck an escaped curl back behind her ear. Somehow in the course of the dance, he has removed his jacket and loosened his tie, the tang of sweat sharp to her nostrils as she buries close, fingers toying with his shirt buttons, relishing in the weight of him.

 

‘Never better, _meine Geliebte,_ _’_ he murmurs back, voice husky against his throat, eyes shining out of a nut brown face that is gleaming with sweat. Around them, the world seems to fall away, the laughter and noise and stamp of feet fading into a comforting blur until it is just the two of them.

 

From the top of the set, she can see her Mam and Da setting off, the swing of her Da’s kilt slicing through the dancers, his feet quick and light against the floor. The crown of his curls burns against the glimmer of the lamplight, her Mam’s face upturned and glowing as she is spun through to meet Hector Fraser.

 

‘Good,’ she whispers, reaching to clasp his hands, so that their wedding bands glow against each other, the promises that they had made just hours previously echoing in the silence.

 

Slowly, she turns his arm upright so that the pale, soft under flesh of his wrist is visible, the weight of his eyes soft and questioning as she traces the line of the dirk’s scar.

 

Her husband’s hands.

 

The word still sends a thrill rippling down her spine, a ball of warmth igniting in her heart, even though she has heard it spoken at least two dozen times since the reception began.

 

‘Blood of my blood,’ he murmurs, following her gaze.

 

‘And bone of my bone,’ she replies slowly, remembering the way that his hand had trembled in hers, his body threatening to break apart as the tip of the blade had scored itself against his skin, eyes full of questions that she had promised herself that she would answer, in time.

 

‘I mean it, _mo chiride,’_ he murmurs now, eyes softening as he surveys her, glowing in the dusky light, the Gaelic slipping off his tongue as though he has been born speaking it.  

 

‘I never doubted ye,’ she whispers back, holding his gaze and reaching up to place a soft, chaste kiss against his forehead, lips tasting the sharp tang of sweat that clings to him.

 

‘Ever.’

 

They remain there for what feels like an eternity before the chaos of the world returns and the combined notes of the fiddle and the melodeon sing with the start of the next dance.

 

Before she knows what’s happening, Faith finds her hand held fast in Hector Fraser’s, the broad, good looking face of her cousin with the wide, grey eyes that he’d inherited from Kirsty, glowing in the dusky light.

 

The dance, a fast paced Strip the Willow, gives her no time to think as she is spun in and out of the set, caught by her Da and out again, his eyes laughing with love. Together, they spin round as he draws her close, pressing a soft, unseen kiss in the depths of her curls.

 

‘Ye’re doing brawly, _mo nighean ruaidh,’_ the words are a whisper, his breath fiery with whisky fumes and she cannot help but smile as she gazes up into his weather-worn face, trying to tell him without words how much she is thankful for his presence.

 

Thankful that he had been the one to raise his glass to her first to begin the wedding toasts.

_The drink had already been flowing freely by then, but her Da’s voice had carried clear and true across the dining room and into the hall._

_Her hand had been held fast in Albert’s as a hush had fallen like a cloak over the room, only the scrape of her Da’s chair audible as he stood and raised his glass, eyes wide and gleaming in the dusky light._

_He had wished them long and lovely days, caught in the seed-time of their love with the rest of the summer to wait for the flowering which had made her bury her head in the crook of Albert’s shoulder to hide her flaming cheeks. His large, comforting hands had come round her shoulder, drawing her close, a deep, soft laugh rumbling in the pit of his throat as his lips pressed a hidden kiss to her brow._

_And then her Da’s voice had grown serious, soft and low, ghosts that she had thought, had hoped had left him, whispering in the depths of his eyes- thanking Albert for all that he had brought to Lallybroch and Broch Mordha._

_Thanking him that in this tenuous world where the lines of peace and war were still so blurred and broken, where the memories of the dead still walked freely amongst the living, he had been able to give his family some hope for the future._

_And Faith had felt her heart swell in her chest, bursting with love for all of them, love that she is utterly unable to articulate into words, burying close into her husband’s embrace as the whole hall stood in unison with a scraping of chairs and a clink of glasses, the cries of ‘gu math fortanadh dhaibh!’ ringing across the room._

_The whisky had burnt at her throat as she had sipped her dram, the vision of faces that she loved and trusted with her whole heart blurring before suddenly sightless eyes smarting with unwanted tears._

_Tears for a life lived and left behind and…_

_‘Here,_ _meine Schatz._ _Dry your tears. That’s it.’_

_The weight of Albert’s handkerchief being pressed into her palm, the warmth and security of his touch telling her that she need not be afraid, his eyes shining as he had nodded in silent recognition._

_A tremulous smile had caught at her lips as she had dabbed at her stinging eyes, turning back to the table just in time to see Jamie Murray stand a little unsteadily, and raise his glass, his dark, Murray eyes gleaming with pride as he watched the pair of them._

_She had hardly heard his words._

_Hardly heard the smash of his glass against the table, the raucaous cheer that follows his speech or Albert’s hand tightening in hers._

‘Thank ye, Da,’ she murmurs, slowly shaking the memories away as she is twirled back out to meet Hector, his face shining in the dusky light.

 

‘Ye look fair braw tonight, cousin.’ His voice is a murmur as they set to each other, feet lightly tapping against the parquet floor, a smile that does not quite meet his eyes tight on his lips.

 

‘What is it?’

 

He shakes his head, his eyes shuttered with ghosts that she has no knowledge of and spins her out again with a twist of his arm, to be caught by her brother.

 

‘Enjoying yourself, are ye?’

 

He grins toothily at her, the soft pull of puppy fat transformed into the sharp lines and bends of boyhood that glint in the dusky light.

 

‘Ye’d best watch yourself, _brathair beag,_ ’ she murmurs, the pull of his arm tight through the thick velvet of his jacket.

 

‘Aye? An’ why’s that, Faith?’

 

The tawny eyes that are so like their Mam’s are glowing with mischief, a small smile quirking at the corner of his lips as she grips his elbow to stop him from spinning too fast.

 

‘The lasses will be all over ye if ye carry on like that,’ she replies quietly, eyes flicking pointedly to Mhairi Fraser, swallowing back the lump in her throat that has continued to make its’ presence felt whenever she’s looked at him.

 

‘So?’

 

She is about to reply when she finds herself in Hector’s arms again and is pulled away into the end of the dance.

 

He quirks a small, pained smile for her, but his eyes are still hooded, seeing but not truly taking in the noise of the celebration.

 

She slows, drawing him out of the set and away, turning back for a moment to find Albert and breathing a sigh of relief when she sees him deep in conversation with Uncle Ian and Auld Jock Kirby at the top table.

 

‘What is it?’

 

They find themselves sat in a secluded part of the hall, tucked away within the dark, soft greenery of the wood anemones.

 

‘It’s…’

 

He sighs, a deep, explosive thing that rumbles deep from the pit of his throat, swallowing thickly before answering her.

 

‘It’s just… This…Seeing all of… All of this joy an’ knowing… Knowing that my Da… He canna… He didna…  An’ then when your Da came up tae discuss the deeds tae the house an’ the farm… I just… I canna…’

 

A sob strangles his final words and he cuts his gaze from her, spreading his hands out to encompass the whole hall; the bunting, the blur of the dances moving through the Gay Gordans, the greenery and the song of the fiddle all falling away as he drops his gaze, fixing it resolutely on the dark ground of his kilt.

 

A shiver ripples down Faith’s spine; a sudden, inexplicable chill flooding her completely.

 

‘Hector…’

 

Tentatively, she reaches to lay a hand on his shoulder, the weight of his shoulder blades rising up through the velvet of his jacket, her heart moved to tenderness. He flinches slightly at the chill of her touch, but then relaxes, shoulders sagging slightly.

 

She knows very little about Joe Fraser’s death. Can only remember the keening cry that had been ripped from Kirsty Fraser’s throat as she had sat at Lallybroch’s kitchen table with Claire on that fateful May morning in 1941, the scrap of crumpled, yellow telegram paper sat like an unexploded bomb on the scrubbed wood between them.

 

Can remember hovering by the kitchen door, on the verge of going in and asking her Mam a question that had burnt at her throat, only to be obliterated into nothingness at the sight of her Mam and her mother-in-law crumpled in a wave of relentless, unified grief.

 

‘He would have wanted it, Hector,’ she murmurs quietly, her heart aching at the unfairness of it all.

 

Aching at the fact that her Da has returned to them, that a wedding can be celebrated whilst the spirits of the dead cried out from their distant shores, yearning to be returned home.

 

‘Aye,’ Hector murmurs, his voice thick and heavy, eyes distant, bringing her spiralling out of her imaginings and back into the present with a thud.

 

‘Aye, I suppose…’

 

A new dance has been called in the hall, the sing of the fiddle slowing and then racing forward, couples breaking off to find their next partner or to step out for a breath of air, the hum of conversation and the chink of glasses thick in the air. Out of the corner of her eye, Faith can just make out her parents in conversation with Kirsty Fraser and Sister Gregory, their figures softly distorted in the guttering lamplight, the sparks from the flames setting her Da’s crown of curls ablaze.

 

Her free hand is heavy against her skirts, the weight of Albert’s rings grounding her.

 

‘He would be. Ye ken that he would. He would want ye and Mhairi tae be happy, not chasing a ghost for the rest of your days.’

 

Without knowing why, she has tightened her grip on his hand until he looks up at her; deep, clear eyes soft and sharp with pain.

 

A beat of silence passes between them and in that moment, she sees not the handsome, tortured young man who sits beside her, but the slightly chubby boy with a perpetual slick of toffee slime catching at his mouth that she remembers from their childhood who had always been two steps behind his cousins, always wanting to please his Da and never quite being able to.

 

‘Ye think so? Truly, Faith?’

 

‘Aye,’ she breathes, nodding quickly, to hide the prick of her tears.

 

They stay there for a long while, not speaking, until she hears the familiar tread of Albert’s footsteps before them.

 

His eyes are dark and shining, his face flushed with heat and drink; the smile that she will never tire of crinkling at his lips.

 

‘Will ye come out wi’ me tae get some air, Faith?’

 

His voice is a murmur as he holds out a hand to her, nodding to Hector who smiles a little stiffly and makes to stand, groping for a handkerchief in his sporran as he does so.

 

‘Aye, _mo chuisle,’_ Faith replies softly, accepting his hand, relishing in the weight of it as he pulls her to her feet. His heart is strong and steady under her palm as she bunches her hand in his jacket, the fabric crinkling under her touch.

 

‘Are you alright, my love?’

 

Albert’s voice is soft and low, dark eyes wide with concern as he takes her in, one hand reaching to cup her cheek.

 

‘Aye,’ she nods, exhaling slowly, willing the tears- tears for Hector, for Joe and Kirsty, for Ebren Krause, for her parents and all those who did not make it home- away.

 

‘Aye,’ she says again, more firmly now, biting her lip and nodding as she meets his raised brows.

 

‘It’s just… Can we talk about this outside, Albert?’

 

He nods, pressing a soft kiss to her forehead and she smiles a little shakily, turning back to Hector, an unasked question blooming on her lips, that is silenced by his nod.

‘I’ll be alright, Faith,’ he says slowly. ‘Thank ye, though. Both of ye. Truly.’

 

They leave him making his way to Maggie Murray who is hovering by the sword chest at the foot of the stairs, missing a partner for Speed the Plough.

 

 _‘Will_ he be alright?’ Albert’s arm is steady against Faith’s, the chill of the night making them gasp as they step out into the courtyard.

 

Faith shivers at the chill of it, but nods quickly, not wanting to think about Hector, inwardly cursing herself for not taking her grandfather’s greatcoat as gooseflesh explodes against her bare arms.

 

The sky is rimmed with a frost of stars; a deep, clear, dark expanse studded with flashes of silver.

 

A cloud shifts and for a moment, the wink of the moon bathes the courtyard in a shifting, glow of silver. From somewhere out in the grounds, the hunting cry of an owl pierces the night.

 

Over the courtyard wall, the great Scots Pine that frames the laundry green rustles in the chill and Faiths sighs, caught in the silent, simple beauty of it all, burying herself against Albert’s chest.

 

‘Here, _meine Geliebte._ You’ll catch your death,’ the warmth of his jacket being draped over her shoulders takes her by surprise. The fabric still radiates his heat, soft and smoky and delicious all at once.

 

Turning to him, her fingers find his shirt buttons, her hands reaching up until they rest directly against his chest.

 

‘And ye would ken all about that, would ye?’

 

A small smile quirks at her lips as she asks the question, the weight of him a solid comfort to her heart.

 

‘Aye, I would. I do.’

 

Though she cannot see his face, she can hear the smile in his voice, the love and laughter set deep in his eyes as he slowly bends his head to kiss her.

 

* * *

 

 

They stay there, watching the moon slowly slip in and out of the clouds, until the noise and the heat of the hall is nothing more than a distant memory.

 

Albert’s arms are secure around Faith’s waist, the weight of his chin nestled deep in the pit of her shoulder blade.

 

Just then he stiffens, his attention snagged upwards, one hand resting itself on her shoulder, an intake of breath echoing against her back.

 

‘What is it?’

 

‘Ursa Major _meine Kleine_. Look- there… No,’ slowly he takes her hand and guides it to where he wants it be, splaying out her fingers so that they cup at a small, velvety dark expanse, studded with tiny pinpricks of light.

 

She squints up into the sky, trying to see what he can so plainly make out and then sees it with a sudden inhale of breath, the large comforting shape of the bear slowly coming into focus over the loch.

 

‘When I was in Zittau I used to look for her,’ his voice is distant, his fingers reaching to card themselves through her hair.

 

‘On the darkest of nights, when there was a lull in the bombs wailing, I’d sit up against the window and try to find her. Tell myself that if I could just hold onto that one grain of hope that she’d be out, I’d find a way back to Scotland. Back… Back to you, _meine Geliebte. ‘_

She doesn’t reply.

 

Cannot seem to find words that are adequate enough to answer him, without revealing that even after he had made her promise that she would forget him, his name had still been a light to her heart, an unseen comfort that had flared against her soul whenever the world and all of its’ worries had felt too much.

 

Instead, she snuggles closer, losing herself in the warmth and strength of his weight against her back, glad beyond measure that he is here.

 

‘Faith! Albert! There ye are!’

 

The moment is broken before it has even begun by the sound of William’s voice floating through the dark, pitched and high with excitement.

 

‘Aye? What is it, Willie?’

 

Her little brothers’ face glows out of the glare of the torchlight, pale and flushed all at once, owlish tawny eyes shining with unknown secrets, face split into a grin.

 

The old front door has been left ajar, a flood of yellow lamplight pooling against the darkness of the gravel. Through the shadows, Faith can hear Bran’s booming bark echoing from the back kitchen, paws scrabbling against the door as he begged to be let out to enjoy the fun.

 

‘Ye’ll see.’ As if sworn to secrecy, he puts a finger to his lips and winks. ‘An’ anyway, Da’s calling for the last dance. Ye dinna want tae miss that, do ye?’

 

Out of the shadows, she sees Albert heave a theatrical sigh and slip an arm around her waist, nodding to William who lets out a whoop and charges back inside, feet slapping against the flagstone floor and away.

 

* * *

 

 

A flood of noise greets them as they make their way down the passageway and into the hall. Aonghas Lindsay’s fiddle is still singing, joined with the weep of the pipes to play the first, downward spread of chords for the Reel of the 51stHighland Division, echoing through the ruckus.

 

The room seemed to fall quiet then, the solemn hush making the hairs on the back of Faith’s neck stand on end, her hand instinctively reaching for the comforting weight of Albert’s grip.

 

He gives it gladly; warm, calloused fingers squeezing against her own.

 

It is a sobbing, keening wail that seems to go right through her, piercing her heart and letting it cry as she catches her Mam’s eye; the wide, whisky coloured gaze soft and shining in the dim light.

 

She can just make out her Da standing a little way apart from the crowd, by the window.

 

His hands are clasped firmly behind his back, shoulders straight in a soldiers’ stand to attention, gazing out into the night. It is as if he is not really there at all, that he cannot hear the deep, marching cry of the fiddle and pipes and Faith’s heart weeps for him, slicing cleanly in two like a broken flower stem.

 

Only a flicker of movement from the stiff fingers on his right hand, the shifting light casting his face into shadow, tells her that anything is amiss, the beat of their tattoo pale and ghostlike against the dark ground of his kilt. 

 

As she watches, a shorter, younger man whom she hasn’t seen during the course of the evening and whom she doesn’t know, dressed in the dark dress kilt of the 51st Highlanders Division threads his way through the gathering crowd to join her Da, stopping short of him to salute, head held high.

 

Her Da’s posture stiffens at the gesture, heels clicking automatically together as his gaze rakes up and down the young man, eyes slowly softening in recognition.

 

Before either of them can speak however, Jamie has pulled the stranger into a tight embrace, shoulders heaving with emotion.

 

Broken words float through the crowd to Faith as she pushes her way to the window, not knowing who she passes.

 

‘ _When I saw in the papers that the lass was engaged, I had tae come, but I… I didna ken… ‘_

_‘How… I… When ye an’ Fortune an’ the rest were taken, I.. We…. We thought that…’_

_‘I… I ken what ye thought, mo chariad…’_

_‘But… But, when so many…. ‘_

_‘I ken mo chariad… I ken…’_

And then her Da is drawing back, holding the stranger at arms’ length, shaking his head in wordless disbelief and Albert is squeezing her hand in a silent prompt as he disappears, urging her to go to him.

 

The crowd is thinning as people begin to settle with their partners or else drift away to find another drink, or in some cases, somewhere to lay their heads for the night as two long sets of the surviving dancers, headed by her Aunt and Uncle form at the top of the hall.

 

Deep in the shadows of the first floor landing, the grandfather clock chimes in the hour, sending a shiver down Faith’s spine.

 

Half past eleven.

 

She has been a married woman for almost twelve hours now.

 

The thought doesn’t seem quite real and yet she can feel the weight of Albert’s ring steady and secure against her finger, it feels as if it has never not been there.

 

‘Da?’

 

She has to raise her voice in order to be heard over the cry of the pipes and the fiddle and he pauses mid-sentence, eyes wide.

 

The stranger’s eyes narrow slightly at the sight of her, flicking in silent question to Jamie who nods, closing the space between them in a single stride.

 

His hands are warm and heavy within her own, squeezing lightly as he searches her face, eyes wide and creased with worry that she wishes he did not have to feel.

 

‘What is it, _mo chiride?_ Where’s Albert?’

Faith shakes her head at the question, returning the pressure in their joined hands and bites back a smile.

 

‘It’s… It’s nothing, Da an’ Albert’s dancing… It’s only… Only that I saw ye when the music started standing all alone and… Are ye all right?’

 

The stranger raises his eyebrows at her Da; a silent beat of understanding passing through them, flashing through the deep, wide eyes as Jamie’s grip tightens against her own.

Tension ripples through the tendons of his hands like the song of a taut wire, his knuckles pulsing white for a moment against her grip.

 

‘Come outside wi’ me, if ye will, _mo nighean ruaidh._ I canna breathe in here. Ye too, Lieutenant.’

 

* * *

 

 

They walk out onto the laundry green in silence, the chill of the breeze catching at Faith’s skirts. The harsh, white glow of a torch floods the dark grass, the Scots Pine rearing up above their heads like some great, mythical beast.

 

The young officer’s face is lost in shadows, though she can see that he is broad boned with wide, deep set, grey eyes that hold the same haunted expression that still flickers momentarily across her Da’s face. The same expression that she had seen on countless patients over the years and hopes, prays, that she never will again.

 

Beside her, she feels rather than hears her Da exhale; a great, rumbling breath that ripples through the night.

 

From somewhere out in the grounds, an owl’s screech pierces the silence and somewhere far off, an unsuspecting mouse or vole dies for its’ carelessness.

 

‘Da…’

 

The rest of her sentence is lost as he cuts across her, his voice low and carrying into the night.

 

‘Faith, this is Lieutenant Jimmy Atkinson. He was… He was with me at St-Valery when we were captured. He’s the reason that the Division survived.’

 

The words come out slowly, as if each of them is being dragged up from some deep, dark place in her Father’s soul that he does not wish to expose.

 

From the hallway, she can hear the faint, crying strings of the reel closing, the hubbub of voices returning as the dancers break out of the hall to find some air.

 

‘Survived?’ The word is spat out into the night in a bark of desperate laughter.

 

‘Ye praise me tae highly, Fraser. All I did was try tae find some dance steps tae prevent us all from going mad. Tae help me think o’ Morag and the bairns an’ how we danced during peacetime. Tae try an’ cling tae hope, Captain! That was all I ever wanted from it. D’ye take my meaning?’

 

The grey eyes catch her Father’s gaze then and hold it steadily, over bright and shining out of the pale, drawn face.

 

The words sting with bitterness and Faith nods, wanting nothing more than to comfort him as she had done for Hector, but not knowing how. Instead, she tries to smile her gratitude to the young man, who nods silently, casting his eyes away.

 

In silence, she watches her Da give a slow, half nod, his expression slowly softening into something that could be a smile.

 

‘Aye, Atkinson,’ he murmurs quietly after a moment.  

 

‘I understand ye.’

 

He is about to say more, when the sound of the back kitchen door being pulled to cuts him short.

 

‘Da? Faith? Mam couldna find ye…’

 

A breath that Faith doesn’t realise that she’s been holding comes flooding through her lungs, her legs suddenly weak beneath her, a breathless laugh bubbling up through her throat.

 

Her sister’s face which she hasn’t seen for nine months is shining out of the intermittent light, the grin that Faith has missed with her whole heart lighting up the darkness.

 

She looks older than Faith has ever seen her, dressed in a long, dark green dress of antique velvet that puddles to the floor, accentuating her height and the ivory paleness of her skin, the flaming curls of her hair loose about her shoulders.

 

A simple silver chain sparkles at her throat, making Faith reach self-consciously for her Mam’s pearls, their weight cool and steady against her skin.

 

Gone is the tall, scrappy girl with the explosion of freckles splattered across her nose and plaits that were in constant states of unravelling.

 

Gone is her playmate, whom she would sit for hours by the loch with, making daisy chains and picking the petals off a dandelion in an attempt to foretell the future.

 

Gone is the little girl who loved Christmas and would beg to be the one to hang up the wreath and stand on a chair to help stir the Christmas pudding with a big, wooden spoon, her toothy smile sticky with pudding mixture on Stir Up Sunday.

 

Gone is the little sister who would fling herself out of the house, raging and ranting at the injustice of the world and tear up across the moor to the broch with Bran at her heels, eyes wide and wild, coming home with tangles of heather and broon in her hair, her dress torn and splattered with grass stains.

 

Gone is the little sister who, only a few months ago, knocked on her bedroom door and curled up beside her, laying her heart bare, pouring out all of her fears and worries out into the warm, close comfort of Faith’s bed.

 

In her place stands a young woman whom Faith doesn’t know.

 

An elegant young woman who glows with an aura of aloof, urban sophistication that she, despite her grandmother’s wedding dress, despite her Mam’s pearls and the soft, new shoes, the leather dark with moisture from the grass and the glitter of the Mackenzie tiara, can never hope to replicate.

 

Tearing his eyes away from Faith and Atkinson, Jamie’s eyes go wide, a shock of recognition flashing across his features as a grin to match his younger daughters’ cuts across his mouth.

 

‘I didna think you could make it, _mo leòmhann,’_ Faith hears him murmur, his voice soft with wonder as he crosses the space between them in two strides, drawing Brianna into a tight embrace.

 

‘I didna think so either, Da,’ she hears Brianna reply, her voice lost in the thick, dark velvet of their Da’s jacket. ‘An’ I… I’m sae sorry for missing the wedding… I… I couldna get away…’

 

Her gaze finds Faiths’ as she says this, her eyes wide with love and hurt and a good many things that only Faith’s heart can read and reply in kind.

 

Slowly, he draws her out of the embrace, turning with a grin to Faith.

 

‘I’m still here, Faithie,’ she hears Brianna whisper as she steps into an embrace that neither of them know who began, the nickname that she hasn’t heard for years closing the gap between them.

 

Her sisters’ voice is a soft kiss against her ear, loved and lost and longed for and Faith can only nod, all the words that she wants to say caught together in a thick lump in her throat.

 

She blinks rapidly and nods again, willing the smart of the tears that she is glad her sister cannot see, away.

 

 ‘It’s still me. Promise.’ 

 

* * *

_**Fin** _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please feel free to read and review! Comments, suggestions, constructive criticisms etc are like chocolate to my brain!
> 
> Much love and enjoy x
> 
> Gaelic translations: 
> 
> braithair beag = little brother
> 
> gu math fortunach dhaibh = good luck to them


	32. Remembrance Sunday, 1947

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 11th November 1947
> 
> The Frasers along with their extended family and friends gather in Broch Mordha’s village square to pay their respect to the dead and look to the future for those who have been left behind

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part of me can't quite believe that I've got to the end of this story. The interpretations of the Fraser family in this setting have become incredibly important to me and the knowledge that it has resonated with so many people means more than I can put into words. 
> 
> Thank you so much to everyone who has stuck with me through the journey that this story has undergone and to everyone who has encouraged and pushed my writing through their comments both here and on tumblr, it means the world to me.

**Epilogue**

**11 th November 1947**

The sky is a cool, crisp grey that hangs over the moor like a cloak, almost shielding the two figures that are making their way over the hill and down the long, winding road that snakes across the softly muted carpet of dead heather and broon completely from view.  

 

There has been a haw frost in the night, hardening the ground until the mud comes up in thick, rough sods flecked with silver under the treads of their boots, biting against the wind, the winter light thick and low against the shadow of the hills.

 

The sky is quiet, the songs of the larks and the thrushes held tight in a reverent hush, the black skeletons of a thorn tree copse reaching like spiders across the slate coloured sky.

 

Jamie’s right hand is heavy on Claire’s arm, the weight of cold skin hard against her own.

 

The other one is clasped heavily against the horn crook of a walking stick, his fingers stiff and still and cold in their grip.

 

His face is impassive, the mask of careful blankness that she wishes that she could tear down and smash into a thousand tiny pieces, firmly in place. Only the tremble of the third and fourth fingers of his right hand tell her that anything is amiss, their tattoo slow and aching against the thick fabric of her coat.

 

‘What is it?’

 

Her voice is little more than a whisper, watching a muscle in his jaw twitch, the slow throb of his throat as he swallows, trying to find words enough to answer her.

 

‘It’s… _’_ He tries to speak and then pauses, holding her gaze with wide eyes that glimmer with ghosts.

 

His face is pale in the wane light, his lower lids smudged dark with bruising, the crows’ feet that crease the skin around his eyes more pronounced than she has ever seen them.

 

He has not been sleeping well of late, she knows that.

 

Has never slept well during the winter since his return, the chill of the wind baring his defences to the elements, lost and frozen as he struggled once more along the bitter death march of memory.

 

Has felt his body tense against her own in the laird’s room that for so long had hosted his ghost, a body that now moved stubbornly against the aches of flesh and bone on cold mornings.

 

A body stiffened not just from the physical damages that the war had wrought on him but aggravated to the extreme by the damp of the camps and the frozen wasteland of the march.

 

Has felt the knot of panic pulsing through suddenly clenched fists return as it had done in those terrifying nights when he had first come home, the tendons in his neck as taut as wire beneath her touch, jumping out against the crumpled linen of the pillowcase.

 

Has heard his breathing coming out in short, sharp gasps as he struggled against her touch, the names of the dead breaking against his lips, their memories rising to invade their bed as her words of comfort were lost in the folds of his pyjama shirt.

 

‘ _It’s all right, Jamie. It’s just a dream, love. It’s over. I’m here. You’re home. Come back to me. Come back to us.’_

‘I know,’ she replies slowly, her voice caught, her hand reaching to clasp his own, drawing their joined fist up so that her lips can brush against his knuckles, holding the wide, fearful gaze with her own.

 

‘I know.’

 

* * *

 

 

The war memorial rises tall and black against the crisp, slate sky when they reach the square.

 

The figure of an infantry man leaning on his rifle gazes out over the glen from the top of the great, dark obelisk, the cast of his kilt cut so fine that there is a moment in which Claire believes that she can see the thick tartan catch against the ripple of the breeze. His is a young face, a face of so many of the young men, mere boys really, who had come through the doors of the recruiting office, drunk on the promise of doing their bit for King and Country, never to come home again.

 

The granite that sweeps over his cheek is unlined and hopeful, the dark, sightless eyes bright as he stares out over the square and over the wet-stoned houses of Broch Mordha, looking past the slowly gathering crowd and into a great beyond.

 

Far out over the moor and onto the deep, purple rimmed hills beyond, the first crisp hints of snow lie soft and undisturbed, bringing with them the first white silences of winter.

 

Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Faith shiver and turn away to Albert, pulling the dark blue nurses’ cape more tightly around her. Even in the cold, her eldest daughter’s skin seems to glow with an internal warmth, the wane, cool sun lighting up the escaped curls that fluttered from her nurses’ cap so that they blaze in a burnished crown of auburn, cinnabar, russet and roan. 

 

A slight swell tugs at the cut of the grey-blue nurses’ dress, the promise of new life blooming through her cheeks that sparks a fire in Claire’s heart.  

 

 _‘_ _Notre petite flocon de neige’,_ _Jamie had called her when Claire had returned with Faith from the hospital to their rented rooms that the RMA had set aside for married couples. His eyes had been wide and bright with wonder, sparked through with hope as he had carefully taken the bundle from her, face softening into a smile as the weight of his first-born bairn had settled comfortably into his arms; the softly slanted eyes that Claire will never tire of blinking up into sleepy wakefulness; a soft, mewing cry falling from the virgin lips._

_Those eyes that had blinked once and then fixed themselves on her father’s, surrendering herself completely to his utter adoration._

_‘Mo cholom geal ye are,’ he’d whispered, eyes shining as he had caught Claire’s gaze, a large, rough finger softly tracing the barely there line of their daughter’s cheek, the crown of his curls catching at the flickering light of the oil lamp that had hung by the door._

 

Albert stands tall beside her, feather dark hair hidden under a tweed cap, hazel eyes soft and loving as he bends his head to press a soft kiss against the crown of his wife’s curls, one arm pressed against the slow swell of her waist.

 

 _There will be grandchildren soon,_ she thinks, tightening her grip on Jamie’s hand as the thought spikes against her synapses; a sudden sob catching in her throat.

 

_Grandchildren racing through the rooms of the gatehouse that Jamie has given to Albert and Faith, free of rent, until they find a place to strike out onto and call their own._

_Grandchildren with her daughter’s shining eyes and her son-in-law’s soft smile, feather dark heads and blazing blue eyes brimming out of indistinguishable faces._

_Grandchildren with lisping voices that would stick out chubby hands for her to hold and call her ‘granny Claire’ as they told her to close her eyes and follow them to the witches’ cauldron or up into the tree house to exclaim over their treasures._

‘Sassenach? Are ye well, _mo Sorcha?’_

Her husband’s eyes are narrowed with concern as he turns to face her and she nods, a small smile quirking painfully at the corners of her lips.

 

‘I’m fine, my love,’ the words are a murmur, lost against the warmth and weight of his chest.  

 

‘Just thinking about all this…’

 

She turns in his arms, spreading hers wide to encompass the scene; seeing Brianna deep in conversation with Hector Fraser. The toss of her curls is long and loose down her back, the long fingers flying like quicksilver through the cold, crisp air.

 

Their middle daughter had come home two nights ago, cheeks flushed with the thimbleful of sherry that she had accepted from Claire, eyes burning with stories of being invited to nights at the King’s Theatre with artist friends who spoke of the future as if they owned it as they had gathered into the drawing room after supper, the wireless a low, comforting, background hum that had made Jamie cough out a derisive Scottish noise deep in his throat.

 

_‘She’s not a child anymore,’ she’d murmured as they had got ready for bed that night, the curve of his skull glowing in the flickering lamplight._

_A moment of silence, his back turned to her, his shoulders hunching briefly as he had gathered himself, staring out into the night, his unspoken retort hanging thick in the air between them._

_‘She’s no’ grown either!’_

_With a pang to her heart, she had watched him struggle before moving to him, wanting nothing more than to gather him into her arms and banish away all of his hurts._

_A sliver of silver moonlight had caught against his curls when she had reached him, picking out the brilliant strands of roan and copper, highlighting the silver threads that linger at his temples.  Tucking her arms about his waist and pressing a soft, unseen kiss against the sweep of his cheek, she had, for the umpteenth time, thanked whatever God was listening, for returning him to her. Aged and battered and bruised he may be but still hers and still, remarkably whole._

_She had felt his exhale then, the tightening of his lungs against her hands, the rush of air breathed out in a slow, pained breath._

_‘Aye,’ he’d replied after a long moment, turning in her arms to face her; his eyes that are shared by both his daughters wide and shining._

_She had nodded and reached out a thumb to press away the crinkle of an age line that had pressed against his forehead, reaching to cup his cheek._

‘ _Aye, I ken that, mo ghraidh. It… It’s just… Seeing her, all grown up an’ talking about men an’… I fear that she’s growing old before her time, ye ken?’_

_‘I know,’ she had murmured back, holding his gaze, his eyes very deep and very blue in the dim light, memories of the little girl with the unravelled mane of auburn plaits and grass stains splattered against the hem of her frock who had run amok, claiming every inch of the estate as her own, rising up in the silence before them._

_From the passageway, the patter of feet had broken the silence for a moment, the click of the bathroom door opening, the thud of it being pulled to, the air full of the hushed rasp of her husband’s breathing._

_‘But we have to trust her judgement. Trust that she’ll come to us if anything goes wrong. D’you think you can do that?’_

_It had been a moment before he had replied, the look in his eyes deep and unreadable._

_‘Aye’, he had said quietly, a slow smile catching at the corners of his mouth as he had bent his head to kiss her._

 

She sees William, who has shot through an unexpected growth spurt so that he is now all arms and legs with tawny eyes blazing out of a freckled face pulled taut over growing bones. His hair is a burnished crown of auburn curls against the pale, grey sky as he gazes up into the youthful face that is hewn forever in stone, looking far older than nine. 

 

‘He’s a braw lad, _a nighean.’_

Jamie’s voice is a murmured smile that is brimming with pride against her cheek as he follows her gaze and she nods, not looking at him.

 

‘Minds me a bit o’ me when I was that age,’ he continues, watching the lad talk quietly to Jimmy Atkinson who is staying at the Old Lion with Morag and his bairns, pale faces lost in the crowd.

 

‘Does he?’

 

‘Aye,’ he murmurs in reply, eyes turning away from his son to fall on Mhairi Bruce, who is standing a little way apart from the crowd, her long, dark skirt catching in the breeze, hugging herself against the chill.

 

She still knows so little about this girl whom Brianna had invited home, a girl who looks far older than eighteen with her long, straight skirts and starched white blouses; a girl who wears her past like a cloak, her emerald eyes shuttered with secrets.

 

Overhead, the thunderheads are rolling over the hills, the last of the sun’s storm-tossed light gleaming against the shadows of the main street.

 

In the slowly growing crowd, she can just make out Jenny and Ian followed by the brood of younger Murray children, Jenny’s dark eyes softening as she catches Claire’s gaze, shifting their youngest, Caitlin, further up her hip and raising a hand in greeting.

 

From the clock tower, the bell tolls the quarter hour, hushing the crowd as if a whistle had been blown to silence them and she hears the quick, marching step of Jimmy coming up to greet Jamie, his salute sharp against the sky.  

 

The poppy wreath is looped over his arm, jewels of scarlet pinned against the black backdrop, the light from Jamie’s medals pinned to his lapel glinting in the light.

 

His dark eyes shine with shared memories, the depths of his pupils glistening with names that Claire has heard her husband cry out in the dark of his nightmares, whimpered desperately like a catechism as he struggled through the worst of his memories.

 

Out of the corner of her eye, she catches Faith’s gaze, a soft smile catching at her eldest daughter’s lips, the names of the dead soft and unspoken between them.

 

‘ _Tiang gu, mo chariad,’_ Jamie replies quietly, returning the salute and accepting the wreath.

 

Somewhere at the edge of the crowd, the wail of Aonghas’s Lindsay’s pipes cry out in the silence, the strains of _Flowers of the Forest_ rising soft and eerie through the dying light.

 

The pipes melody rises and weeps and cries for the men that had been lost as Father Cameron steps up to address the silent crowd.

 

His voice is low and carrying, ringing over the square so that cloth caps are removed and heads bent, speaking of the young men who had gone so bravely and quietly from the lands that they loved, but rarely spoke of.

 

It had not been in them to speak of that love, but they had held it in their hearts regardless, held like a lit lamp whose flame burnt quiet and strong and true in their quest to fight and die in the defence of their country.

 

A shiver ripples down Claire’s spine at that, an unbidden sob catching in her throat as she sees Kirsty and Mhairi Fraser weeping quietly in Hector’s arms, his handsome face white and strained as he holds onto his Mam and sister watching Aonghas slowly step around the memorial, his pipes singing out in the stillness, the tune dancing through the village and leaping up over the moor. Joe’s ghost waits quietly beside them, the quirk of his quick, dark smile shivering in the silence as he slips away to join the others that had fallen with him.

 

Others that were little more than names now, but whose memories would live on in those that loved them, in those who had lost pieces of their hearts to the dark shadows of the German hills.

 

She sees Mhairi Bruce hug herself a little tighter against the chill, her pale face that is flushed with cold turned skywards, her eyes shining with the glimmer of unshed tears, lips pursed together, not looking at Brianna who moves towards her, a tentative hand reaching out to hold her own before slipping away.

 

Sees Albert nod quietly to Faith and bend to kiss her gently, dark eyes gleaming as they watch her disappear into the crowd before turning back to the memorial, face set and dark with memories.

 

‘Mam?’

 

The weight of William and Brianna’s hands clasping into her own takes her by surprise.

 

Faith comes quietly up beside them, the warmth of a calloused, work worn hand reaching gently to rest against Claire’s arm, her head burying itself against the pit of her shoulder blade; a soft, sad smile playing at the corner of her lips.

 

And then, out of nowhere, the bell begins to toll in the hour and Faith’s hand tightens against her shoulder. 

 

Brianna and William’s eyes are fixed on the figure of their father, his crown of curls glowing with burnished fire against the grey, November light as he steps up to lay the wreath against the cold, dark foot of the stone.

 

His face is set and white in the stillness, eyes blazing with quiet dignity, the ghosts of his men rising for the last time around him.

 

And in the stillness, a lone voice rings out, letting the brave, quiet words of Binyon’s poem fill the air, tearing Claire’s heart open afresh.

 

As she stands there, the weight of her children’s hands clasped in her own, listening to the old, proud words as they ring out over the square, she watches Jamie step back and raise his head to the soldier who guarded the silent names of those who had been lost and give a silent nod.

 

**_They went with songs to the battle, they were young,_ **

**_Straight of limb, true of eye and aglow,_ **

**_They were staunch until the end against odds uncounted,_ **

**_They fell with their faces to the foe._ **

****

**_They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old,_ **

**_Age shall not weary them, nor shall the years condemn,_ **

**_At the going down of the sun and in the morning,_ **

**_We will remember them._ **

 

* * *

****

**_The End_ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please feel free to read and review! 
> 
> Comments, questions, constructive criticism etc are like chocolate to my brain!
> 
> Much love and enjoy x

**Author's Note:**

> Please feel free to read and review!
> 
> Comments, suggestions, constructive criticisms etc are like chocolate to my brain!
> 
> Much love and enjoy x


End file.
